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The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Life Spiral-Bound | August 1, 2017

Richard Dawkins, Yan Wong

$12.89 - Free Shipping

A fully updated edition of one of the most original accounts of evolution ever written, featuring new fractal diagrams, six new 'tales' and the latest scientific developments.

THE ANCESTOR'S TALE is a dazzling, four-billion-year pilgrimage to the origins of life: Richard Dawkins and Yan Wong take us on an exhilarating reverse journey through evolution, from present-day humans back to the microbial beginnings of life. It is a journey happily interrupted by meetings of fellow modern animals (as well as plants, fungi and bacteria) similarly tracing their evolutionary path back through history. As each evolutionary pilgrim tells their tale, Dawkins and Wong shed light on topics such as speciation, sexual selection and extinction.

Written with unparalleled wit, clarity and intelligence; taking in new scientific discoveries of the past decade; and including new 'tales', illustrations and fractal diagrams, THE ANCESTOR'S TALE shows us how remarkable we are, how astonishing our history, and how intimate our relationship with the rest of the living world.

Publisher: Hachette Book Group
Original Binding: Paperback
Pages: 800 pages
ISBN-10: 1474606458
Item Weight: 1.4 lbs
Dimensions: 5.1 x 1.9 x 7.8 inches
In this extraordinary book, Dawkins turns chronicler. He does so with a clever twist that avoids the perennial problem of evolutionary history-telling ... As a contribution to the history of ideas this book is well worthy of Britain's top public intellectual. The arguments are as sharply honed as we have come to expect from Dawkins—Matt Ridley, Guardian

Richard Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist renowned throughout the world. He was educated at Oxford and taught zoology before becoming the first holder of the Charles Simonyi Chair of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, in 1995. His bestselling books rank among the most influential intellectual works of our time. They include THE SELFISH GENE (1976), RIVER OUT OF EDEN (1995), and UNWEAVING THE RAINBOW (1999).
richarddawkins.net / @RichardDawkins

Yan Wong is an evolutionary biologist who studies the theoretical underpinnings of life. He is also a radio and television presenter, perhaps best known from the BBC One television show BANG GOES THE THEORY.
yanwong.me / @DrYanWong