| View Larger Image | Mapping Human History: Genes, Race, and Our Common Origins | Paperbackby Steve Olson (Author)
| List Price: | $14.95 | | Price: | $10.17 | | You Save: | $4.78 (32%) | | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
| | Binding: | Paperback | | Publisher: | Mariner Books | | Page Count: | 304 Pages | | Publication Date: | April 01, 2003 | | Sales Rank: | 99,535th |
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FEATURES | - ISBN13: 9780618352104
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
In a journey across four continents, acclaimed science writer Steve Olson traces the origins of modern humans and the migrations of our ancestors throughout the world over the past 150,000 years. Like Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel, Mapping Human History is a groundbreaking synthesis of science and history. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including the latest genetic research, linguistic evidence, and archaeological findings, Olson reveals the surprising unity among modern humans and "demonstrates just how naive some of our ideas about our human ancestry have been" (Discover).Olson offers a genealogy of all humanity, explaining, for instance, why everyone can claim Julius Caesar and Confucius as forebears. Olson also provides startling new perspectives on the invention of agriculture, the peopling of the Americas, the origins of language, the history of the Jews, and more. An engaging and lucid account, Mapping Human History will forever change how we think about ourselves and our relations with others. |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 3.5 based on 52 reviews)
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Mapping Human History by D. E. W. Turner (Hereford, AZ, USA)  4 Stars
July 04, 2009
This is an interesting and well-written book about how our DNA proves that all human beings alive on earth today descend from one man and one woman. He then proceeds to explain how human beings spread from Africa to the Middle East, Europe, Asia, Polynesia, and America. There are some mysteries regarding some of the relationships between the gene pools - for example, there is a group of genes called Haplogroup X, which is found only in Europe and among the Druze, that is found in Amerindian remains from graves that predate Columbus and, by the divergence between the European/Druze group and the Amerindian group, they were separated about 10,000 years. Haplogroup X has never been found among the Asian groups that the other Haplogroups of the Amerindians match. One statement in the book I underlined as it matches my own philosophy about race: "Genetics research is now about to end our long misadventure with the idea of race. We now know that groups overlap genetically to such a degree that humanity cannot be divided into clear categories." (Page 6 - 7). The author states over and over that we are all generically related. One of my favorite sentences from the book is, "Everyone in the world today is most likely descended from Nefertiti (through the six daughters she had with Akhenaton), from Confucius (through the son and daughter he is said to have had), and from Julius Caesar (through his illegitimate children, not through Julia, who died in childbirth)." (Page 47). No wonder my father looked like a bust of Julius Caesar!
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Misleading account by Viewer (Australia)  2 Stars
November 03, 2008
"No significant difference was found in genes belong to different races"
Olson seems to subordinate science for political reasons. That's fair enough, but it doesn't make him correct. For instance, saying there is no difference in genes is misleading. In terms of mtDNA, there is greater difference between dogs, wolves, and coyotes, than there is between ethnic groups of human beings. Geneticists measure genetic diversity within a species by determining the average heterozygosity of the species' genome, or the likelihood of its having more than one variant of any given gene. Humans have an average heterozygosity of around 0.7, whereas dogs' is about 0.4.
Also consider the paper 'Global landscape of recent inferred Darwinian
selection for Homo sapiens' by Eric T. Wang*, Greg Kodama, Pierre Baldi, and Robert K. Moyzis.
This analysis suggested that around 1800 genes, or roughly 7% of the total in the human genome, have changed under the influence of natural selection within the past 50,000 years. We only have a vague idea what most of these 1,800 genes do. It will take years to figure out the uses of each one, so Olson is premature in his comments. (the Gene Expression site provides a pretty up to date account on genetic findings).
There is overlap between groups and you have to account for environmental factors, but Olson seems more intent on whitewashing the whole area rather than presenting a balanced account.
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ROFLCOPTER! by Alphabet Soup (whats it to you?)  5 Stars
September 20, 2008
I went to google.com and searched my name...Jarred Stephen Olson. Then I clicked the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button and it came to this book. The funny thing is, my dads name is Steve Olson, and look who the author is :p
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The Truth About the origin of Race and Its new Meaning by Herbert L Calhoun (Falls Church, VA USA) 5 Stars
August 03, 2008
This skillfully written book by a scientist/journalist reports on his groundbreaking research into the origins of the "anatomically modern human," which he tracks across 100,000 years of history to a small group who once lived in eastern Africa. Although it still remains a mystery as to how this one group survived when other less modern humans did not, the archaeological evidence does not show that conflict was the cause.
The DNA research which forms the basis of this book, dispels once and for all the whole fabric of the myth of race. Revealing that the inconsequential biological differences that have been so enlarged to provide social rationalization and justifications for discrimination, genocide and war, throughout the world for most of man's history, could not account for the drastic cultural differences between groups.
In looking at DNA histories of five broad regional groups, the only conclusion that a thoughtful reader can derive from this research is that evolving biological differences seem almost assuredly to have been driven by cultural differences rather than the other way around.
Five Stars
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Politically Correct Journalistic Explanation of Human Genetic Diversity by aharnisch (Scottsdale, Arizona United States) 2 Stars
June 20, 2008
As mentioned in previous reviews, this is a politically correct journalist tackling human genetic diversity. At a minimum I anticipated a scientific review of the latest research in the field, a survey of recent findings. Instead I was subjected to an endless barrage of Mr. Olson's opinions, and I do emphasize the word opinions, on the genetics of race. I would expect an experienced science writer to at least make an attempt to separate his opinions from scientific fact...no such luck here. Save your money and purchase a book written by a "real scientist."
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