The Origins of Man [Hardcover]

Douglas Palmer (Author), Paul Bahn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 15, 2007

Offers a comprehensive overview of today's research into our origins and the human diaspora across the globe.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Dr Douglas Palmer is a science writer and lecturer who teaches human evolution for the Cambridge University Natural Science Tripos. He is author of Neanderthal, the book that accompanied the acclaimed Channel 4 television series, and more than a dozen other books on fossils, evolution and the earth sciences in general. As a science journalist he contributes to publications including Science, New Scientist and BBC Wildlife Magazine. He was a lecturer at Trinity College, University of Dublin, Ireland for 20 years before settling in Cambridge. Consultant Dr Paul Bahn is a freelance archaeologist and writer. He is co-author of Archaeology: Theories, Method and Practice and author of The Cambridge Illustrated History of Archaeology, Journey through the Ice Age and Lost Cities. He writes and broadcasts widely on archaeology. He lives in Hull.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: New Holland Publishers Uk Ltd (October 15, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1845371658
• ISBN-13: 978-1845371654
• Product Dimensions: 11.8 x 9.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,119,384 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good snapshot of current state of knowledge, March 25, 2008

By 

Outside Food (Lafayette Hill, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Origins of Man (Hardcover)

This amply illustrated book explains how humans came to be, using the latest fossil evidence to trace evolution from our nonhuman ancestors. There are plenty of disagreements over interpretation, such as the fossil of a "hobbit-like" person of Flores Island, Indonesia found in 2004. The author even-handedly covers both sides of the various controversies, giving his opinion of the reliability of the evidence. Artwork, tools, and possible migration patterns are also covered. Advances continue to be made in this field -- for instance, the discovery of more Flores fossils was announced two weeks before I wrote this review. The book was written in 2007 but is going to be out of date in a few years.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully produced, sloppily edited, March 17, 2009

By 

Carl Zetie (Virginia USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Origins of Man (Hardcover)

This book provides a beautifully rendered overview of the 7 million years since our last common ancestor with the apes. Combining maps, photos, drawings and text, it shows how much we've learned about ourselves -- and candidly shares the gaps still to be filled by future discoveries, which should inspire the next generation of paleontologists.

The one negative: The copy-editing of the text is astonishingly sloppy for a book of this quality. I'm not talking about simple typos or letter transpositions: Entire sentences are garbled as though the author left off in mid-revision and never came back... and the editor failed to notice. In other places, material appears to have been re-ordered without being re-read or revised so that, for example, a technical acronym is used in one paragraph and then defined (as if never used before) in the next. At times, you'll need to re-read an entire paragraph a couple of times to figure out what was intended! Two pages alone (186 & 187) contain more errata than you'd normally find in an entire book of this quality. I very much hope there will be a 2nd edition that fixes the textual problems, because this book deserves to be widely read.