A Story of us: A New Look at Human Evolution

A Story of Us by Lesley Newson and Peter Richerson is a smart and engaging book by two seasoned thinkers and scientific writers. For an academic work the book is lucid with a pleasing narrative. I’m reminded of other strong writing teams, like Ann Druyan and Carl Sagan (Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors). The reference to Sagan is appropriate since Newson and Richerson include, like Sagan in Chapter 7 of his acclaimed book Cosmos, an account from the perspective of a human ancestor. The stories embedded in each chapter by Newson and Richerson are ingenious and appealing and reflect the solid scholarly material presented simply and directly before and after any given story. All the pieces fit together nicely. Newson and Richerson’s book is enjoyably readable and profoundly informative about the power of cultural evolution. I’d recommend this book to students of the human career, to borrow from paleoanthropologist Richard G....