The Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan

  (out of 5 stars)

I read Dragons of Eden many years ago as a teenager. I've got a couple of Carl Sagan's more recent works in the short queue to read soon, so I wanted to reread this classic to get a bit of a basis to work from. Dragons is Sagan's foray into the philosophy and science of human brain evolution, one which was groundbreaking at the time and is still largely applicable several decades later.

Sagan is considered a master of his craft, merging the often complementary but divergent subjects of science and philosophy. Dragons summarizes some of the cutting-edge science of the late 1970s with Sagan's own insights into evolution, function of brain, and various physiological changes in the human body.

The first half of the book lays down a lot of the biology, anthropology, and evolutionary framework Sagan uses later to speculate on brain development, psychology, dreams, and the future of human intelligence. Many of Sagan's speculations are well-founded in research that has since been conducted, although some of his less-central thoughts are still not validated (and are still sources of ongoing research and controversy in many fields).

Dragons is a book often referenced in a broad range of subjects, and has been a source of inspiration for countless scientists and writers, and after reading this book a second time after a couple decades since the first reading, there is no doubt why. Sagan's ability to mix hard science with philosophical considerations has very rarely been matched, and it becomes even more obvious just how much he is missed in the world.

Overall, I have to honestly rate this book at three and one-half stars, due largely to the fact that a great deal of the underlying science has been improved upon, and many of his technological references are now greatly out of date. At publication, this was easily a four and one-half star book, and only because of its age is it not so now. Still, highly recommended to anyone interested in human evolution, biology, philosophy, or on learning about Sagan's on thoughts on a wide variety of subjects. Well worth the time spent to read, just ignore some of the less timely information as you go.