Customer Reviews

Journey from Eden: The Peopling of Our World

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Brian Fagan is more than fair. In this interesting and at the same time informative work he continually offers multiple answers to questions. Did we become human in Africa and then undertake the journey or did we develop independently? How and why did they travel? Why were the Neandertals so late in populating Europe despite its closeness.

The author is, if anything, open-minded, giving all sides to an argument. He beings with a discussion of the mythical "Eve" and who she might have been and where she might have been from. He then discusses the evolutionary aspects and the paleontological finings. One interesting chapter concerned the populating of Asia. The job is made all the more difficult because of the discovery of very ancient man in such places as China and Indonesia who were not homo sapiens.

A discussion of the peopling of the Americas follows with the obvious conclusion (based on dentistry) that Native Americans are descended from notheastern Asians. the book contains several illustrations and charts that add to the story.

Excellent, easy-to-read book about how modern humans dispersed and populated our world. Tracks human colonists to Australia, across the bitter Russian steppe to Siberia and Americas, etc.

I read this one when it was first published. It was good then. I recently gave it a reread...it still is. Fagan has given us a pretty good look at the peopling of the world as we understand it today. There have been some recent discoveries that may or may not change the views in this work, but overall it is still a solid bit of writing. These recent discoveries deal with time lines for the most part and little effect the author's work. This is a pleasing read, easy to understand and rather captivating. Like any good work of this nature, it leaves many questions unanswered, and that is as it should be. The book does make you think and that is probably one of its greatest strengths. Recommend this one highly.