A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived

The Stories in Our Genes

By: Adam Rutherford

Narrated by: Adam Rutherford

This is a story about you. It is the history of who you are and how you came to be. It is unique to you, as it is for every one of the 100 billion modern humans who has ever drawn breath. But it is also our collective story, because in each of our genomes we carry the history of the whole of our species.

Since scientists first read the human genome in 2001, it has been subject to all sorts of claims, counterclaims and myths. Drawing together the latest discoveries in this rapidly changing area of science, Adam Rutherford shows that in fact our genomes should be read not like instruction manuals but more like epic poems. Genes determine less than we have been led to believe about us as individuals but vastly more about us as a species.

In this captivating journey through the expanding landscape of genetics, written with great clarity and wit, Adam Rutherford reveals what our genes now tell us about human history and what history tells us about our genes. From Neanderthal discoveries to microbiology, from redheads to dead royals, criminology to race relations, evolution to epigenetics, A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived is a demystifying and illuminating new portrait of who we are and how we came to be.

Written and read by acclaimed science writer and broadcaster Adam Rutherford.

Download the accompanying reference guide.©2016 Adam Rutherford (P)2016 Orion Publishing Group

compelling, exciting and myth shattering

answered many of my questions after I got my genome studied and explored other thought-provoking questions I would not have dared ask. I enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone with some curiosity on their and everyone's path as human beings.. which I guess should all of us!

Better than any thriller!

A fascinating, exciting and wonderfully narrated treatise ( in a way) that reads like a novel. It's absolutely brilliant and the topic is of current interest- a book for our times!
I wish there were more of these books. The narrator could be an audible reader if he wasn't so busy investigating all these interesting genome facts. 10/10

Very educational and engaging

Educational and engaging. it gets a little difficult to follow, about 3/4 way through. But it ends well.

amazing book.

The book is amazing but I struggle with the narrator's performance. He is a bit monotoned.

Superb

I’m always looking for good popular science books, and this one certainly fits the bill.

It tells the story of the human genome starting with early humans (e.g. homo erectus, Neanderthals, Denisovans and us, Homo sapiens) and then moves on to look at a whole suite of topics relevant to genetics. Examples of this would be: genes for red hair, blue eyes and the ability to smell certain substances; a close look at the genetics of different races; the effects of inbreeding; the evolution in some human populations of the ability to drink milk into adulthood; the human genome project; epigenetics, and the future evolution of humanity.

This book was so good that I didn’t want to miss a thing, and so I slowed it down to 0.8 narration speed – and even then I rewound the tape a few times to re-listen to some sections if I’d been a bit distracted first time around.

Needless to say: Recommended!

Entertaining

But may be a little bit too shallow? I would have preferred an even deeper dive into the ongoing science in this field.

Great

If I have one quibble, it’s that I would have preferred the audiobook to have been organized into smaller chunks with actual titles beyond chapter numbers. That would have been easier to navigate.