674 pages
English language
Published April 30, 2016 by Overlook Duckworth.
"Specialist scientific fields are developing at incredibly swift speeds, but what can they really tell us about how the universe began and how we humans evolved to play such a dominant role on Earth? John Hands's ... ambitious quest is to bring together this scientific knowledge and evaluate without bias or preconception all the theories and evidence about the origin and evolution of matter, life, consciousness, and humankind. This ... book provides [a] comprehensive account ... of current ideas such as cosmic inflation, dark energy, the selfish gene, and neurogenetic determinism"--Dust jacket flap.
I was hoping for a surprising and insightful history comparable to Sapiens, but this is more a dry enumeration of science and pseudoscience without intriguing at any moment in time. I found myself often skipping a chapter, checking if the next one would be better. After a few, I skipped the entire first part. When part 2 didn't get better, I dropped the entire book.
