- Hardcover: 216 pages
- Publisher: BBC Books; Film and TV tie-in ed edition (10 Feb 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0563551054
- ISBN-13: 978-0563551058
- Product Dimensions: 28 x 21.6 x 2.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 821,608 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Ape-man accompanies a BBC TV series and video of the same name. As the subtitle indicates, Robin McKie's new book tells the story of human evolution, warts and all, over the last four million years or so. From a shared ancestor with the higher apes, an upright walking ape-human in Africa, McKie takes our story through the Ice Age to the domination by modern humans.
One of the few unique attributes of humans, which sets us apart from our nearest living relatives, the chimps, is a concern with our own history. Judging by the increasing number of TV programmes, interest in our own prehistory is at last emerging from the shadow of the dinosaurs. Although there has been serious scientific investigation of this history and our ancestry for well over 150 years now, it is still a bit surprising how little we know.
The quest to discover our story is a bit like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle; but there is no picture to tell us what the finished jigsaw should look like, we have no idea how many pieces there are altogether. And the few pieces we do have are mostly incomplete. A positive consequence is that practically any new bit of evidence can change our idea of the overall picture. So, the story is constantly changing. As science editor for the British newspaper, the Observer, McKie is able to provide a very readable and up-to-date account of our remarkable story for the general reader.
One of the most fascinating questions explored by McKie concerns our relationship with the Neanderthal people, who died out 30,000 years ago. Comparison of Neanderthal DNA with that of living humans, suggests that our ancestors did not interbreed with the Neanderthals. Recently however, skeletons have been found which seem to show a complete mixture of Neanderthal and modern human (Cro-Magnon) characters. One of the great assets of ape man is that McKie uses extensive quotes from interviews with the scientists who work on human prehistory, so we get as close as possible to the bare bones of the story.
Altogether, the excellent text, art work, photos and graphics along with notes, a bibliography and index makes ape man very attractive for the general reader and allows it to stand alone from the TV series. --Douglas Palmer
Product Description
This story of the origins of humans, explains how we developed from apes into modern humans. It includes: the first human footprint; the radical re-drawing of European man's family tree; DNA evidence of the interbreeding which occured as the first humans evoloved; and the future of human evolution.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great intro to the story of human orgins,
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This review is from: Ape/Man: Adventures in Human Evolution (Hardcover)
A very good book that unlike many books with an academic slant is a pleasure to read and easy to follow.The author covers the main theories, approaches and questions well providing a good introduction to the story of human evolution. The informal writing style and layouts with great pictures and large text make it a good read for the masses. I esp. like the description of Leakey as a woman "who smoked cigarettes, wore trousers and could pilot a glider". It won't answer all your questions (on the contrary, if it gets you interested, it will raise more) but it does just about succeed in being balanced enought not to annoy palaentologists and other professionals in the field with the vague oversweeping conclusions that so many pop science books come to. Overall, a nice book to read - comparible to the excellent 'The book of life" an other large natural history texts.
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