Pandora's Seed

Sep 20, 2024 10:48 PM

Author:Spencer Wells

Pandora's Seed

In The Journey of Man, renowned geneticist and anthropologist Spencer Wells traced human evolution back to our earliest ancestors, creating a remarkable and readable map of our distant past. Now, in his thrilling and thoughtful new book, he examines our cultural inheritance in order to find the turning point that led us to the path we are on today, one he believes we must veer from in order to survive.

Pandora's Seed takes us on a powerful and provocative globe-trotting tour of human history, back to a seminal event roughly 10,000 years ago, when our species made a radical shift in its way of life: we became farmers rather than hunter-gatherers, setting in motion a momentous chain of events that could not have been foreseen at the time.

Although this decision to control our own food supply is what propelled us into the modern world, Wells demonstrates with the latest genetic and anthropological data that such a dramatic shift in lifestyle had a downside that we're only beginning to recognize. Growing grain crops ultimately made the planet more crowded, sedentary and unhealthy. The expanding population and the need to apportion limiting resources such as water created hierarchies and inequalities. The desire to control - and no longer cooperate with - nature altered the concept of religion, making deities fewer and more influential, foreshadowing today's fanaticisms. The proximity of humans and animals bred diseases that metastasized over time. Freedom of movement and choice were replaced by a pressure to work that is the forebear of anxiety and depression millions feel today. Wells then offers a hopeful prescription for altering a life to which we were always ill-suited, changing priorities and self-destructive appetites before it's too late.

A riveting and accessible scientific detective story, Pandora's Seed is an eye-opening book for anyone fascinated by the past and concerned about the future.

Reviews

Spencer Wells - explorer, geneticist, geographer, and author - takes us on an exciting tour of the last 10,000 years of our history in order to forewarn us of what we shall have to deal with in the next 50 years

—— Jared Diamond, Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse

Spencer Wells's writing combines a deep knowledge of the history of human evolution with a most engaging and lively manner of making that story come alive. Pandora's Seed draws upon compelling anecdotes and moving personal narratives to crystallize a crucial turning point in the history of our species, the point at which modern human beings stop and look back at our long evolutionary trajectory, and confront squarely its dark side, its cost

—— Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor, Harvard University

Spencer Wells has a provocate and timely message. He argues that we are at a critical juncture where our culture could destroy the very essence of what it means to be human ... Everyone with a stake in humanity's future should read this book

—— Brian Fagan, author of The Great Warming and Cro-Magnon

One of the best essayists in the business. He uses his wide background knowledge (anything from baseball to the political history of revolutionary France) as a bridge to entice non-scientists into sharing the excitement of scientific discovery and the curious, convoluted path of new ideas through history

—— Scotsman

This delightful little book is perfect for parents who want to understand the different methods to do arithmetic their children are learning - and why they are being taught that way. The authors' easy going style and humor should help ease the path for parents for whom mathematics brings feelings of dread

—— Keith Devlin, Stanford University, author of 'The Math Gene' and 'Mathematics Education for a New Era: Video Games as a Medium for Learning'

Rob Eastaway and Mike Askew's book is a massive step in this direction and will help banish the lament that "I was never any good at maths at school"

—— Sir Peter William, author of The Williams Report

Eye-opening and hugely enjoyable book ... overall this is an original, surprising and rather wonderful addition to our literature of place

—— Sunday Telegraph

A book that begs us to use our imaginations; to appreciate what we pass by every day but never really see

—— Metro

This is a delightful and important book. By focusing on the fringes, on the shabby reality of suburban life, these poets remind us that there are always new myths for old, that the 'edgelands' may even be our true centre

—— John Greening , Country Life

With chapters on paths, dens, wastelands, business parks and many other topics, this book has opened my eyes to all kinds of things I might not have noticed before

—— Wendy Cope , Daily Telegraph

A 2011 favourite

—— Wendy Cope , Observer, Books of the Year

The year's most unusual travel book

—— Tom Chesshyre , The Times

[An] eye-opening and hugely enjoyable book

—— Daily Telegraph

Written in a delectable prose that scatters flashes of poetry over a sardonic undertow of social comment, Edgelands is a lyrical triumph. On Britain’s grotty margins, the duo trace “desire paths” to find beauty and mystery in the rough darkness on the edge of town

—— Boyd Tonkin , Independent

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