Anthropology

  (out of 5 stars)

Paleobiologist Steven Stanley considers the impact of major ecological and environmental changes wrought by ice ages on the evolution of human beings in his book Children of the Ice Age. A fascinating subject and impressive theory, the treatment here is disappointing.

I found Stanley's writing to be a bit jarring: the narrative seemed to skip across necessary connections between thoughts. By the time the author got to the primary evidence for his thesis, I had had to reread numerous passages to attempt to understand his points. The writing is not dense or overly-complicated (I am an experienced science reader who often enjoys such dense treatments), but it left me missing the point far too often.

Still, the subject is very interesting, and while I wouldn't recommend this book to many people, those with a keen interest in paleontology, paleobiology, anthropology, evolution, and population migrations will likely find some value in reading Children. Two and one-half stars.

  (out of 5 stars)

The discovery of the Java Man skeleton was one of the groundbreaking moments in paleontology and anthropology, providing a key piece of predicted but, until that point, largely absent evidence for near-human ancestors. Here, in a book written by Roger Lewin but credited as well to Carl Swisher and Garniss Curtis, the history of the discovery and related events is described. An interesting subject, the book nonetheless fails to thrive and instead is largely muddled and dull.

The first part of the book is by far the most interesting as the authors describe the finding of Java Man and the efforts required over the years to study the specimen. If the rest of the book had maintained the pace, level of detail, and science content, it would have been a recommended resource for popular anthropology and science readers.

However, the book takes a turn for the worse as the authors fall into a long section detailing the office politics which saw their research threatened from forces allied against them within their organization. While somewhat interesting, this digression from the story of Java Man breaks the narrative in a way which damages the reader's enjoyment and wonder.

The last section feels tacked on, as if the authors recognized that the book was not nearly long enough to warrant publication. So, a section on anthropology and human populations in general is presented which harbors very little information about Java Man or of the events which surrounded the fossils. A basic discussion of the subject, this section failed to produce any meaningful addition to the book itself or to the field of popular anthropology.

Java Man left me feeling unfulfilled, as if the story itself never warranted a book length treatment. The last two sections, which make up the majority of the work, are largely unnecessary for the reader and offer little on-topic information that wasn't already detailed in the opening chapters. Not specifically recommended for anyone, though it may be of interest to those who seek popular anthropological histories. Two and one-half stars.

  (out of 5 stars)

Science journalist Nicholas Wade has delivered an exploration of human genetics in the spirit of Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel. Wade works backwards in time, using genetic clues to discover knowledge about prehistoric human societies. Before the Dawn offers a breadth of knowledge about current genetic research into human populations and migrations, and draws some fascinating conclusions about the rise and dispersal of early human societies.

Wade's narrative largely follows research into genetic variations found in the Y chromosome and in mitochondrial DNA. These variations, the distribution of which allows researchers to track common ancestry and branching, are used to narrow the likely periods of human movement out of Africa to points beyond. A bit of time is spent on the earliest culturally modern humans in Africa before moving on latter periods of migration and settlement. Potential interactions with hominid relatives is discussed, as is the impact of various cold spells and ice ages.

Wade explores social behavior as well, showing how researchers have applied darwinian natural selection and genetic drift to account for both universal and isolated behaviors. Later, language is considered, with significant caveats as to its effectiveness in signalling fundamental shifts in human population. The discussion on race is well crafted. Wade does not bow to social pressure in describing genetic variations found among the races, including a fascinating discussion of the intellectual prowess of Ashkenazi Jews. Just to be clear, Wade is not advocating superiority of any race, he wants only to point out that there are significant data indicating genetic differences of isolated human populations can produce measurably different abilities.

I found Before the Dawn to be fascinating, and would highly recommend it to anyone who enjoyed the Pulitzer Prize-winning Guns, Germs, and Steel. Wade may not be a scientist, but he has conducted a thorough investigation into the ongoing research of population genetics and offers the reader a tremendous treat of science and history. Five stars.

  (out of 5 stars)

Over the course of reading numerous non-fiction books in the past years, I've seen Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel referenced numerous times, and I finally got around to reading this Pulizter Prize winning text over the weekend. Having caught an television episode adapted from the book, I had some idea what to expect, but was overwhelmingly pleased to finally tear into the thesis in full. The scope and subject matter make Guns one of those fascinating multi-subject (and multi-cultural) books which I could not put down.

Diamond uses this book to explore his anti-racist thesis that societies which came to dominate, conquer, and otherwise outpace other societies were the lucky recipients of geography and not simply smarter, craftier, or more powerful by the result of their own genetic advantages. Throughout the book, Diamond looks at just why some civilizations, namely those in the Eurasian supercontinent, tended to acquire technologies and advantages faster and were more apt to use them than the cultures in the Americas, Africa, and elsewhere.

It all turns out to be a case of the luck of geography, says Diamond. The east-west axis of Eurasia, combined with population densities, an abundance of prime domestication candidates for both crops and animals, as well as the diffusion of technology all favored the civilizations which grew out of the Fertile Crescent. Numerous disadvantages are explained for Africa (the Sahara barrier, lack of prime domesticatable animals, etc), the Americas (bottleneck of north-south axis, isolated societies, nearly no surviving domesticatable animals, etc), and Australia (large areas of poor farm land, few domesticatable animals, isolation from Eurasia, etc). Diamond argues that the Eurasian peoples were not really better in any way, they just happened to live in areas capable of obtaining and utilizing numerous advantages not available in other locations, and this, he argues, is the primary set of factors leading, for example, to the conquest of the Americas.

Diamond's germ theory of conquest is outstanding and very deeply discussed throughout. The fact that Eurasian cultures had many choice domesticatable animals (including pigs, sheep, cows and horses) allowed them to interact with various animal-vector germs and, over many thousands of years, develop strong resistence to those illnesses. Other locations, such as the Americas, had very few such animals (really just the llama), and had no opportunity to survive early contact with those germs before Europeans showed up bearing the dangerous microbes.

There are strong discussions and examples of the spread of humans throughout Oceania and Southeast Asia. Diamond uses various island experiences to highlight how small differences in geography and natural resources can lead to astounding differences in the advantages any of those island cultures can achieve. His thoughts on these situations are profoundly interesting and offered numerous fruits for the curious mind to consider.

From food production to germ resistence, and technological advantages to the unconscious drive to build larger and stronger states, Diamond leaves no stone unturned in examining why some few cultures came to dominate global society. It is no wonder why this book captured the Pulitzer. It is thorough, insightful, engagingly complex, and an outstanding treatment of 13,000+ years of human history of society, movements, and developments. Very highly recommended to anyone with a thirst for history, anthropology, civilization studies, exploration, or sociology. Five stars.

  (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.