The Ancestor's Tale

A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution

By: Richard Dawkins

Narrated by: Richard Dawkins, Lalla Ward

In The Ancestor's Tale, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins offers a masterwork: an exhilarating reverse tour through evolution, from present-day humans back to the microbial beginnings of life four billion years ago. Throughout the journey, Dawkins spins entertaining, insightful stories and sheds light on topics such as speciation, sexual selection, and extinction. The Ancestor's Tale is at once an essential education in evolutionary theory and riveting in its telling.

©2004 Richard Dawkins (P)2015 Tantor

I love Dawkins.

his explanations are intricate, yet simple enough to understand for a self educated individual of modest intellectual abilities.

amazing as always Dawkins

I loved the journey and the story's involved with following humanity back to the origin of life.

Amazing look at the evolutionary past of life!

I had expected (and wanted) this book to focus exclusively on the evolutionary past of people. While the beginning of the book covers the evolutionary past of people, it branches off to the evolution of different animals. Dr. Dawkins and his second wife did an excellent job of narrating different parts of this book. The text mentions the shared ancestor and its name "Concestor 19" (I think it was 19.)
I was pleasantly surprised that Audible let me download this audio book for free. I am glad they did. even if you have to pay for this audiobook or use credits you paid for to purchase it, it's well worth it.

Marvelously well done

As a biologist, I greatly enjoyed this book. It was both accessible to the lay person and full of the wonder and mystery that I think people in the field would appreciate alike. I think he eloquently captured the wonder of an evolved mind contemplating its origins and the complexity of our biodiversity alike. I look forward to listening again someday.

Another fantastic Dawkins audiobook!

Well narrated and easy to follow. Love the dual voices with Dawkins and Ward. Fascinating analysis of evolution through a series of tales.

Great Book; Distracting Narration

The book was great but I didn't like the tag team narration. I also was hoping for more detail about our human cousins but that wasn't the specific focus is the book.

Thoroughly enjoyable

Fascinating information shared in a very easy to follow and entertaining manner. Highly recommended for all.

a hero of science narrates our history

I have fallen for Dawkins and what's amazing is he narrates his own books for the most part which I love. This book is as good as the selfish gene for me. It gives important insights and truths into life itself and has excited interest in biology and science in general.

Revealing

Perhaps the most interesting topic covered in this book is the hypothetical origin of organic molecules and the birth of heredity. There were a few misnomers for certain clades such as “mammal like reptiles” when in fact they are not reptiles at all and should be called stem mammals. The book is most interesting when it does not digress for extinct taxa.

One of the most amazing books in my lifetime

this book makes me feel better about life and living. absolutely amazing. The author and his other narrator are also excellent readers.