Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins formats his trek through time on Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. He starts with present-day humans and goes backward in time, meeting up with other pilgrims (other species) at the points at which our evolutionary paths diverged.
My take
This was a bear of a book, but it was worth it. It's a complex tale and it's long (688 pages). Dawkins tackles many interesting facets of evolution along his painstakingly thorough journey. The experience starts with modern-day Homo sapiens and Dawkins explores how the different races diverged before introducing us to our closest ancestors, the ergasts and the habilines. These terms were vaguely familiar to me from a bio anthro course with some crazy-haired professor I took in college, but I hadn't thought much about them since so it was interesting to read about them in a broader context. From there, he explores where we split from the rest of the primates. Et cetera, et cetera. Certain species get to tell "tales," in which Dawkins uses them to illustrate certain evolutionary points. It's quite comprehensive, and I was introduced to plenty of species I never knew existed. The chapters that deal with vertebrates are the most interesting; things get a little more tedious when you reach the invertebrates.
Dawkins kicks off his romp through millions of years of evolutionary history with two opposing quotes—one from Mark Twain ("History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes.") and one from Clarence Darrow ("History repeats itself; that's one of the things that's wrong with history.") I love the Twain quote in general, but it also sums up some of the major themes of the book—that different species have independently evolved independent characteristics. (Who knew that howler monkeys and humans independently evolved the ability to see color?)
Bottom line
It's definitely a thought-provoking and rewarding read, even if you don't have a passion for evolutionary biology. It's an infuriating book if you're a creationist, but it's hard to read books like this and remain skeptical about evolution.
Fine print
The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution, by Richard Dawkins
Genre: non-fiction, biology
Photo from Goodreads
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