Before The Dawn: Amazon.ca: Nicholas Wade: Books

Frequently Bought Together

+

Deep Ancestry: Inside The Genographic Project

+

Total List Price: CDN$ 71.90
Price For All Three: CDN$ 48.98

Show availability and shipping details

This item: Before The Dawn by Nicholas Wade
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca.
Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 39. Details
Deep Ancestry: Inside The Genographic Project by Spencer Wells
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca.
Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 39. Details
The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey by Spencer Wells
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca.
Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over CDN$ 39. Details

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Deep Ancestry: Inside The Genographic Project

by Spencer Wells

5.0 out of 5 stars (2) CDN$ 12.37

The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey

by Spencer Wells

4.3 out of 5 stars (23) CDN$ 14.56

Seven Daughters Of Eve

by Bryan Sykes

3.7 out of 5 stars (83) CDN$ 15.33

Mapping Human History: Genes, Race, and Our Common Origins

by Steve Olson

3.8 out of 5 stars (32) CDN$ 14.56

The First Human: The Race to Discover Our Earliest Ancestors

by Ann Gibbons

4.5 out of 5 stars (2) CDN$ 14.56

› Explore similar items

Product Description

From Publishers Weekly

Scientists are using DNA analysis to understand our prehistory: the evolution of humans; their relation to the Neanderthals, who populated Europe and the Near East; and Homo erectus, who roamed the steppes of Asia. Most importantly, geneticists can trace the movements of a little band of human ancestors, numbering perhaps no more than 150, who crossed the Red Sea from east Africa about 50,000 years ago. Within a few thousand years, their descendents, Homo sapiens, became masters of all they surveyed, the other humanoid species having become extinct. According to New York Times science reporter Wade, this DNA analysis shows that evolution isn't restricted to the distant past: Iceland has been settled for only 1,000 years, but the inhabitants have already developed distinctive genetic traits. Wade expands his survey to cover the development of language and the domestication of man's best friend. And while "race" is often a dirty word in science, one of the book's best chapters shows how racial differences can be marked genetically and why this is important, not least for the treatment of diseases. This is highly recommended for readers interested in how DNA analysis is rewriting the history of mankind. Maps. (Apr. 24)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From AudioFile

Nicholas Wade, a science reporter, compiles the current knowledge of the last 50,000 years of human evolution. He addresses such topics as language, brain size, tool-making, and race. His use of controversial ideas makes most of the discourse speculative--lots of "may" and "perhaps." Alan Sklar's deep voice never bungles a complicated term. Listeners must be ready for lingo like "allele," "steatopygia," and "anthropophagy." While some narrators can't handle any foreign words, Sklar demonstrates his skill with the African click languages. J.A.H. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

See all Product Description

Inside This Book (Learn More)

First Sentence
TRAVEL BACK INTO THE HUMAN PAST, and the historical evidence is plentiful enough for the first couple of hundred years, then rapidly diminishes. Read the first page

Explore More
Concordance

Suggested Tags from Similar Products

(What's this?)

Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)

anthropology(1)

evolution(1)

evolutionary psychology(1)

history(1)

human evolution(1)

Customer Reviews

3 Reviews

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

Average Customer Review

4.0 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)

Share your thoughts with other customers:

Create your own review

Most helpful customer reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Redrawing the human image, Aug 14 2006

By	Stephen A. Haines (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

Drawing on a wealth of resource material, Wade builds a comprehensive picture of who we are and where we come from. The "origins" question has been pretty well solved. Darwin's insight that Africa was humanity's home base has been verified in several ways. It is the issue of human traits, their origins and expression, that's in need of clarification. Wade has scoured the research to derive some interesting, and to some, highly disturbing, conclusions.

Writing to his defined audience, Wades use of Biblical metaphor touches a nerve. Its a useful technique as he opens with Genetics & Genesis. Theres no doubt in the readers mind that genetics will be the guiding theme as this book progresses. Genetics and DNA analysis have enriched our view of the past, he notes. He assures us, as well, that the processes they depict are still working to guide us into the future. He lists some of the insights these tools have given us. The clear continuity between the ape world of 5 million years ago and the human world that emerged from it opens the inventory, which includes cultural input and various social factors, why our global dispersal was so rapid, and how language impinged on our development as a species.

Among the more captivating aspects of our evolutionary track is the number alternative paths we might have followed. Wade explains how ape diversity has made discernment of our lineage an onerous task. An indication of whats to follow emerges in a section on why we became naked. The loss of fur meant that exposed skin required protection from the African sun. All humanitys skin cells contain melanin, with variations determined by geographic location. The human diaspora out of Africa led to many variations in our make-up. In many ways, we became different as we wandered the face of the globe. Wade proposes that our migrations were encouraged as much by emerging cognitive skills and development of changed relations between the sexes. Another trigger may have come from an ancient gene - FOXP2. Widespread among mammals, FOXP2 underwent significant changes in our species. Its now known to be a major factor in our language skills. Language, often used as the means to reconcile differences, has also led to changes in our relationships from mates to masses of others. Disputes are subject to the use of deception and aggravation. The result, according to a cluster of researchers Wade has read or interviewed, suggests our capacity to wage war is widespread and of long history. Warfare among chimpanzees implies an inherited trait of deep lineage. The cultural influences merely exacerbate what is already in place.

After explaining how our species distributed itself around the globe, he describes the Settlement process and how it led to agriculture. We take both community and farming as a given today, but its a very recent alteration from our heritage. Perhaps of more significance is that settlements occurred in widely dispersed sites at various times. The conditions leading to farming and its subsequent changes in human behaviour also were different. What prompted us to take this step? Agriculture resulted in a change from social equality to a hierarchical structure. Leaders were needed for planning and implementation of field use, crop distribution and resource allocation, especially water. Its an interesting facet of this transformation that agriculture emerged where waters availability was dodgy. Religion, whatever its role in hunter-gatherer times, was increasingly important in stable communities. The entire human social structure changed, with new sets of values and choices becoming the norm.

In what will certainly emerge as one the most discussed segments in this book, Wade dedicates a chapter to Race. The issues are based on Wades emphasis on how much the human genome has changed in recent [at least on an evolutionary scale] times. While the physical characteristics such as skin colour are manifest, there are other, more subtle aspects of what makes groups of us different from others. Among these are those with or lacking a tolerance for lactic acid upon becoming adults. More significantly perhaps, is the discovery that certain medications work better with some groups than others. Health issues such as these are only now being addressed. Much more work is needed and research funding may be challenging some ideological fixations.

Wades synopsis of human evolution is among the top books issued on the topic in recent years. He has no axes of his own to grind, and blunts some dogmas in passing. The research he describes is wide-ranging. More importantly, much of it relates to how we deal with each other across lines of community, nation and humanity as a whole. While no book on the human track will be complete, nor perhaps of major importance for very long, this one will be worth keeping, and re-reading for some time. [stephen a. haines Ottawa, Canada]

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Why do Dogs Bark?, Feb 16 2009

By	John Mundy "The Rideau Reader" (Merrickville, ON. Canada) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Nicholas Wade has written a really interesting book. He is a journalist for the New York Times who has assimilated the most recent research into the prehistory of our species. He brings to life the excitement that specialists in this field must feel by explaining how the science of genetics has led to deep new insights into our human journey out of Africa some 50,000 years ago.

Apparently, we non-Africans descend from a single group of perhaps no more than 150 hunter-gatherers who left Africa across the southern end of the Red Sea and over the next several thousand years spread across the rest of the globe. Wade describes these ancestors of ours, who were most probably clothed (the genetics of human lice apparently tells us this) and may have spoken the founding language of the species. He shows us how we spread across the continents; explains the impact of the various most recent glacial periods and much more. He's particularly good on the evolutionary basis for warfare, religion and trade.

There is a great section where he speculates on where, when and how we domesticated the dog, or perhaps as he explains, how wolves domesticated themselves into dogs. But wolves don't bark. Is this a crucial behavioral adaptation which attached dogs to our species? Did dogs in turn introduce to humans the idea of private ownership (because dogs attach themselves to an individual, not a group) and did they make the first settlements practical (because they bark at intruders)?

This is also an optimistic book because Wade explains how humans have chosen to balance their instinct for aggression with another instinct for reciprocity which suggests that we are in fact, not doomed after all.

I strongly recommend the book to readers who are interested in history, prehistory, genealogy and new developments in sciences.

The Rideau Reader

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars We are the best, Jun 18 2009

By	Francesco A. "Francesco A" (Qu�bec, Qc Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Before The Dawn (Paperback)

The book's title and the editor's presentation seemed promising. Since the author is an experienced science journalist, I hoped to learn about the latest genetic research on our species' evolution. Regretfully, I quit before the end of the first section. Not that the book is dull. You do find results of the latest genetic analysis of strands of the human genome, as well as some of the preposterous (and unimginative) speculations going around. Stephen Haines' r�sum� above seems fairly good.

But two things bothered me.
First, in the section I read, the author writes as if he wants to make a point. He can't help writing as a sports journalist. So the section is mostly about the superiority of our species (Cromagnon) over the Neanderthals). To me his point (his Cromagnon's axe to grind) comes from the Bible's nursery rhyme which says : "We are the only human species left not because of a series of chance events in the past, but because we are the chosen ones (the pinnacle of evolution)". Were the Neanderthals humans?; "Certainly not!". And so it goes :

-"We evolved the genetic capacity for language some 60 000 years ago...they didn't ;

-We developped culture perhaps in the last 40 000 years...they didn't (or the little they did they picked it from us)".

Some 30 000 years ago, they disappeared. Why and how? We don't know yet. Is there a modicum of evidence? "Wait, we don't need that. Listen, I have a hunch (or is it a feeling?). They surely were struck dead by our blinding superiority: They were bruttish and dull minded, whereas we arrived from Africa standing tall with our superior mind and culture (fully armed like Athena). (even Spencer Wells seems to share that feeling). and so on...and on. On that one, I would rather turn to Chistopher Stringer.

Second, it seems so typicallly conservative USA (or should I say WASP?). I was afraid the author would end up saying : "We are the pinnacle of life's evolution, and since we Americans are the best in the world, you may guess the rest."

As an antidote, I would propose Pascal Picq's "Nouvelle histoire de l'homme (A new history of mankind)" and the companion book � Aux origines de l'humanit� (In Search of Mankind's Origins)�. The first is an essay on our western mindset, full of ready made ideas about apes and humans. It sets our species' evolution in the context of apes' evolution. The second is a collection of scientific review articles written by specialists and edited by Pascal Picq and Yves Coppens. Pascal Picq is a paleoanthropologist at the Coll�ge de France and a colleague of Yves Coppens (Coppens was part of the international group that found Lucy, but seldom mentioned by Donald Johanson).

Both books are in French. For the "French challenged" (as Brian Greene would say) these books might be translated in Spanish any time soon, but probably not in English. Curiously, there seems to be a divide between French (the old Europe) and American "scientists" (a sign of our lingering Cromagnon's will to power?).

So, we need to be patient and wait for a scientific and fair presentation of our species' evolution. In the mean time, you can try Ian Tattersall or revisit the late Stephen J. Gould.

Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 3 customer reviews...

Listmania!

Best In Science: A list by Matthew Oakley
Books worth reading: A list by Science Lover
See beyond your eyes and wake up!: A list by Dan Brooks

Create a Listmania! list

Look for similar items by category

Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Anthropology
Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Evolution
Books > Science > Behavioral Sciences
Books > Science > Evolution
Books > Science > Mathematics

Look for similar items by subject

Feedback

Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

	73% buy the item featured on this page: Before The Dawn 4.0 out of 5 stars (3) CDN$ 22.05
	11% buy Deep Ancestry: Inside The Genographic Project 5.0 out of 5 stars (2) CDN$ 12.37
	8% buy The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution 4.0 out of 5 stars (14) CDN$ 23.99
	4% buy Saxons Vikings And Celts 4.0 out of 5 stars (1) CDN$ 15.33

Before The Dawn (Hardcover)

Frequently Bought Together

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Product Details

Product Description

From Publishers Weekly

From AudioFile

Suggested Tags from Similar Products

What do customers ultimately buy after viewing this item?

Customer Reviews

Listmania!

Look for similar items by category

Look for similar items by subject

Feedback

Your Recent History