After Eden

The Evolution of Human Domination

By: Kirkpatrick Sale

Narrated by: Gary Regal

When did the human species turn against the planet that we depend on for survival? Human industry and consumption of resources have altered the climate, polluted the water and soil, destroyed ecosystems, and rendered many species extinct, vastly increasing the likelihood of an ecological catastrophe.

How did humankind come to rule nature to such an extent? To regard the planet's resources and creatures as ours for the taking? To find ourselves on a seemingly relentless path toward ecocide?

In After Eden, Kirkpatrick Sale answers these questions in a radically new way. Integrating research in paleontology, archaeology, and anthropology, he points to the beginning of big-game hunting as the origin of Homo sapiens' estrangement from the natural world.

Sale contends that a new, recognizably modern human culture based on the hunting of large animals developed in Africa some 70,000 years ago in response to a fierce plunge in worldwide temperature triggered by an enormous volcanic explosion in Asia. Tracing the migration of populations and the development of hunting thousands of years forward in time, he shows that hunting became increasingly adversarial in relation to the environment as people fought over scarce prey during Europe's glacial period between 35,000 and 10,000 years ago. By the end of that era, humans' idea that they were the superior species on the planet, free to exploit other species toward their own ends, was well established.

©2006 Duke University Press (P)2013 Redwood Audiobooks

Critic reviews

"A fascinating book!" (Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future)

" After Eden is a thought-provoking attempt to understand the rapacity that is now so clearly characteristic of homo sapiens...." ( The Independent Weekly)

"This is a highly readable book. The value of this study is that it investigates an achievement that many take for granted (humans becoming the dominant species on this planet)." ( Environmental History)

Interesting perspective

It is an interesting perspective on human development. Speculating on how we got here is always entertaining.

Some frustrating biases frankly

Expected environmentalist angle coming in, but saying neanderthals didn't hunt big game and other such claims is ridiculous in light of current evidence and perennial common sense...