Customer Reviews

Human Evolution: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

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Human Evolution by Bernard Wood is just the facts and only the facts. At 131 pages this is all the updated information about human related fossils, up to the year 2005, and the debates about what they mean.

The book starts out explaining about the Tree Of Life, what fossils are, how they are found and how they are used as evidence. Everything is clear and crisp, Mr. Wood treats the reader to a lesson in paleoanthropology, without moving too swiftly but without talking down to the reader. Can be finished in a day or two, no problem.

Great for people new to the subject or as a small guide for those on the go.

This book is everything that the VSI (Very Short Introductions) are supposed to be: it's short, it's to the point and it's up-to-date. It reviews all the major events in the history of thought on human evolution, as well as all the major landmarks of that evolution as we understand them today. When there are several differing interpretations of fossil evidence, Wood impartially points out all the strengths and weaknesses of different positions. Although this is not a book on evolution in general, the early chapters position human evolution within the context of primate evolution, and even more briefly, under the evolution of life. For the review of evolution in general, "Evolution: A Very Short Introduction" would be an excellent choice.

Did you ever have a high school teacher or college professor who had the unhappy knack of making even the most exciting topics deadly boring the moment he or she began lecturing on them? I bet so. I know I did.

I ask this because struggling through Bernard Wood's Human Evolution took me back to those classes. There are few topics more intellectually exciting than the one Professor Wood takes on. There are few treatments of it more deadly. Readers who pick this book up expecting to read lively prose describing the search for hominid fossils in Africa and Asia will be unpleasantly surprised. Instead, what Wood gives us is a (mercifully short) treatise on methodology and taxonomy, with just enough brief accounts of field work to keep the reader plodding through to the end.

What Wood's written, in short, is a brief textbook, not a narrative intended for an educated lay audience. There are pages of charts outlining hominin taxa and comparing human and chimpanzee anatomical features. And there are lots of sentences like this one: "The shape and size of the true pelvis, combined with what can be extrapolated from adult brain sizes about the brain size of a H. ergaster neonate suggests that the head was small enough to be oriented transversely all the way through the birth canal, and thus it did not need to be rotated after negotiating the pelvic inlet" (86). Holy cow.

Look: I don't expect that every science writer will be a Loren Eiseley, Rachel Carson, or Stephen Hawking. But it would be nice if science writers who take a crack at the popular market would actually try to interest their readers. Use Wood's book as a quick and convenient taxonomic guide, to be consulted but not read straight through, and spend your time on more readable narratives such as (for example) Nicholas Wade's Before the Dawn, Ann Gibbons' The First Human, or Donald Johanson's books on Lucy.

Valdivielso's review has it right. This is a tightly and carefully organized summary, and it requires careful reading. In addition, each chapter ends with a valuable "Points to Watch," which alert readers to on-going debates and uncertainties. Bravo!

An impressively thorough and concise narrative. Keeps one's attention and is fact filled. Instantly made me a "Very Short Introduction" fan.

This book is exactly what the title promises it to be -- a "Very Short Introduction" to our species' family tree. It's not the best book there is on the basics of human evolution. (For that, I would recommend Carl Zimmer's "Smithsonian Intimate Guide to Human Origins.") But for a very small, easy to read, inexpensive introduction to the subject of human origins, it's pretty good.

This little book clearly and concisely covers such topics as: the basics of biological evolution, significant hominin fossil finds, and fossil dating methods. I'm studying physical anthropology, and I found it to be a great refresher. In fact, I even learned of a dating method that has yet mentioned in any of my classes so far -- ostrich egg shell dating. Reading "Human Evolution: A Very Short Introduction" won't turn you into today's Louis or Mary Leakey, but it will probably teach you a few things about where (and who) we came from, as well as how we know.

This is a very good book. In a mere 131 pages the author introduces us not only to the evolutionary history of mankind, but also to the methods of how and why we know, in short to the science of paleo-anthropology. Focus is on the fossils, and how we date their ages. The author also introduces the use of DNA to explore human pre-history. Most of all, he never minimizes the problems, the doubts, and the uncertainties of the science. This little book clearly shows that the first dozen pages of the Bible can not be literally true. Any creationist who has not read this or a similar book (e.g. Smithsonian Intimate Guide to Human Origins, 2005) can not know what he is talking about.

I ordered this book in the evening, and received it two days later. The book looked like it had never been used. I hope this seller continues to offer items to sell. Will look to buy from them again.