The Origin Of Humankind (Science Masters Series)

By Richard E. Leakey

Book Overview

"The name Leakey is synonymous with the study of human origins," wrote The New York Times. The renowned family of paleontologists--Louis Leakey, Mary Leakey, and their son Richard Leakey--has vastly... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0465053130
• ISBN13: 9780465053131
• Release Date: August 1996
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 190 Pages
• Weight: 0.82 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 0.5" x 5.0"

Customer Reviews

A five stars class book

Origin of humankind is a great book. It tells people about evolution of humankind from its very beginning approximately 2 millions years ago. It covers many aspect from anatomy, biology, social, psychology, etc. So, in my opinion this book is quite enlightening for layman such I am.

Fascinating

Very interesting synopsis of many aspects of human evolution. Discussion of the evolution of bipedal locomotion is particularly interesting. Also, of note, Leakey explains the hypothesized explanations for slow growth and development of human children compared to their primate counterparts. I guess more than explanations for the mechanisms of evolution of human growth and development patterns, he does a good job of illustrating how such slow growth and development of human children provide survival and innovation superiority over other species. Very interesting book; however, much of what Leakey elaborates on does not rest on hard evidence (in my OPINION). Many explanations provided are based on logical conjecture. This in no way detracts from the thought provoking nature of the book. Great book for the interested non-anthropologist. As a scientist in a different discipline, I found the book to be very easy to read and assimilate, as Leakey writes to a lay audience.

Good introduction into Human Evolution

If I were an expert on anthropology and human evolution I probably wouldn't be reading a book on it from the Science Masters Series. This is really something of a primer on human evolution for people like me (I'm a Sociology graduate student) that are interested in the topic but really have very little background in biology or anthropology. Admittedly, I did find some of his topics overly interesting because of their apparent relationship to topics addressed by Sociology. One of these was the notion of consciousness. He attributes the idea of the Inner Eye/Inner 'I' to Humphrey, 1986. Perhaps Humphrey pulled a fast one on anthropologists because his interpretation is a rehash of George Herbert Mead's Symbolic Interactionism and his conceptions of consciousness and the 'I' and the 'Me'. Aside from that criticism, I found the book to be a very enjoyable read. I have something of a background in biology (no expert by any stretch), but with what little background I do have the concepts discussed were not over my head. For individuals that have a good high school and perhaps college education, this book shouldn't be too difficult to digest and should be rather informative. I think I was most intrigued by the discussion of the human mind and consciousness, but the entire book was interesting (in a positive way) to me and I would highly recommend it. There was one quote from Richard Dawkins in the book that I found particularly insightful (whether true or not, I don't claim to know), "Perhaps consciousness arises when the brain's simulation of the world becomes so complete that it must include a model of itself." (p. 142).And another quote which isn't so much the quote but the content, "Skilled players of the game-those equipped with a more acute mental model, a sharper consciousness-would have enjoyed greater social and reproductive success. This is grist for natural selection, which would have raised consciousness to higher and higher levels. This gradually unfolding consciousness changed us into a new kind of animal. It transformed us into an animal who sets arbitrary standards of behavior based on what is considered to be right and wrong." (p. 154).Overall, there are undoubtedly other books out there with more up-to-date information. The presentation of the material in this book also reveals that with every passing year the information in the book will become more and more outdated - so it is with science. But for an introduction to human evolution, I very much enjoyed it.

Excellent Book!

This book was extremely interesting and far easier to understand than I first expected. It's well laid out and not overly wordy. Even those with little to no science background will find this book very readable and thought-provoking. Definitely one of the best science texts I've read in a long time!