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Transcendence: How Humans Evolved through Fire, Language, Beauty, and Time
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About This Book
In the tradition of Guns, Germs, and Steel and Sapiens, a winner of the Royal Society Prize for Science Books shows how four tools have enabled humans to control the destiny of our species. What enabled us to go from simple stone tools to smartphones? How did bands of hunter-gatherers evolve into multinational empires? Readers of Sapiens will say a cognitive revolution – a dramatic evolutionary change that altered our brains, turning primitive humans into modern ones – caused a cultural explosion. In Transcendence, Gaia Vince argues instead that modern humans are the product of a nuanced coevolution of our genes, environment, and culture that goes back into deep time. She explains how, through four key elements – fire, language, beauty, and time – our species diverged from the evolutionary path of all other animals, unleashing a compounding process that launched us into the Space Age and beyond. Provocative and poetic, Transcendence shows how a primate took dominion over nature and turned itself into something marvellous.
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Reviews
"A provocative, highly readable take on our astonishing emergence from the primordial soup."
"beautifully written ..."
"And, with that wealth of palaeoanthropological and other research to draw from, most of the chapters become a mosaic of tersely introduced evidence."
"The strongest of the two sections are 'Fire' and 'Language,' with 'Beauty' becoming more esoteric and theoretical and 'Time' more scattered and difficult to follow."
"Even those broadly familiar with humanity's story will find new information and insights in Vince's fascinating study."
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