An impressive introduction to the burgeoning recalibration of paleoanthropology.
A fascinating forensic inquiry into the origins of humankind.
In this exciting investigation into the long and ancient path of humans, the authors explore the connections among evolution, climate, and environment. It has long been the understanding that the earliest humans evolved in Africa and spread from there to the other land masses. But recent discoveries, aided by advances in genetics and our ability to more accurately read fossil evidence, have suggested many different scenarios. “Europe 14 million to 7 million years ago must have been like a giant laboratory where great apes made huge evolutionary leaps forward,” they write. “Then, as climate conditions became more challenging in Europe and more favorable once again in Africa, these more highly evolved great apes would have returned to Africa.” The narrative spotlights the authors’ pleasing explanatory style, as they describe the evolutionary process and the mechanisms and geographical spread of changing climatic conditions. The authors energetically highlight major discoveries—e.g., Graecopithecus as “the first potential early hominin” who “was closer to modern humans than to modern great apes” or the 6-million-year-old footprint from a biped discovered on Crete in 2002—and consistently show that there is much more to the story than old bones and radiometric measurements. They re-create entire vanished environments; present a vibrant picture of the hand’s evolution for different functions; propose a scenario for the capture and use of fire; and explore the value of running, language, food, and wanderlust. “Paleoanthropology urgently needs new hypotheses so that the data we now have can be categorized in a way that makes sense,” they write. Throughout this eye-opening book, the authors present a number of them, and any reader interested in the study of early humans and their predecessors will find plenty of material here.
An impressive introduction to the burgeoning recalibration of paleoanthropology.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-77164-751-9
Page Count: 376
Publisher: Greystone Books
Review Posted Online: July 22, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2020
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.
Helping liberals get out of their own way.
Klein, a New York Times columnist, and Thompson, an Atlantic staffer, lean to the left, but they aren’t interrogating the usual suspects. Aware that many conservatives have no interest in their opinions, the authors target their own side’s “pathologies.” Why do red states greenlight the kind of renewable energy projects that often languish in blue states? Why does liberal California have the nation’s most severe homelessness and housing affordability crises? One big reason: Liberal leadership has ensnared itself in a web of well-intentioned yet often onerous “goals, standards, and rules.” This “procedural kludge,” partially shaped by lawyers who pioneered a “democracy by lawsuit” strategy in the 1960s, threatens to stymie key breakthroughs. Consider the anti-pollution laws passed after World War II. In the decades since, homeowners’ groups in liberal locales have cited such statutes in lawsuits meant to stop new affordable housing. Today, these laws “block the clean energy projects” required to tackle climate change. Nuclear energy is “inarguably safer” than the fossil fuel variety, but because Washington doesn’t always “properly weigh risk,” it almost never builds new reactors. Meanwhile, technologies that may cure disease or slash the carbon footprint of cement production benefit from government support, but too often the grant process “rewards caution and punishes outsider thinking.” The authors call this style of governing “everything-bagel liberalism,” so named because of its many government mandates. Instead, they envision “a politics of abundance” that would remake travel, work, and health. This won’t happen without “changing the processes that make building and inventing so hard.” It’s time, then, to scrutinize everything from municipal zoning regulations to the paperwork requirements for scientists getting federal funding. The authors’ debut as a duo is very smart and eminently useful.
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781668023488
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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SEEN & HEARD
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