Just wow!

Excellent book, a classic that any prehistory enthusiast should read! The story is well structured, it reads almost like a novel, the descriptions are superb and the science backing it up solid!

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1 person found this helpful

Very well written. A classic.

This is truly awsome. Not only for being as informative as a great science book shouble be but because of its literary merit. It is very very well written. A classic.

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Great story

Beautifully narrated by the author, the story of how Lucy was found was fascinating. I highly recommend this book. Fossil Men continues some of this with stories of Tim White in Ethiopia, though the political situation was much worse in the 1980's. Overall, an excellent book that still holds up well 40 years later.

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4 people found this helpful

A glimpse into our search for ourselves.

A fascinating insight into the period surrounding one of the most important finds into our search for origins.

Having Donald Johanson as narrator enhances the experience immeasurably.

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Dated, but in a good way.

Having previously listened to Fossil Men, it was interesting to hear this story from decades ago featuring many of the paleoanthropologists and other players appearing in that book. Enjoyed it thoroughly. Well organized, well told, and starring everyone’s favorite Australopithecine.

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Powerful and terrific

The audio version of “Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind” comes into the world as science and reason are besieged in every quarter. The timing for this clarion call that we pay attention to who we are and how we came to be here is ideal. It should light anew the fire to view ourselves as human beings with a common ancestor.

The Iliad is a great tale. Still, I wondered as I read it years ago how much more lively and moving it might have been to hear Homer narrate it directly to me. In 1981, I was inspired when I read Johanson’s “Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind,” for the first time. I have it read more than once since. Like the Iliad, it is a great tale. Still, I wondered for decades, knowing the story as I do, how it would be to hear Johanson relate the whole tale, privately and uninterrupted, just to me.

As I listened to the audio book alone through ear pods, hearing Johanson detail everything about the science, history, and adventure of his experiences in Ethiopia and around the world in the 1970s, it felt fresh and new. I had the sensation of enjoying the best presentation of a concert music presentation I ever had heard. I might know Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D minor, and remember fondly the first time I heard it, but the current live performance by a Master is its own wonderful experience.

Johanson’s oral rendition of “Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind” is for everybody. If you do not know the story, it will exhilarate you, and teach you quite a lot. If you know the story, this narrative will reward you with a richly satisfying experience. Thank you to Johanson for taking on this project and to William Hartel for engineering it from an abstract hope to a concrete product.

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8 people found this helpful

Worth your time, I learned tons of science

It's been months since I finished the book and I still remember all the facts about the Lucy fossils. I learned what potassium argon dating is and how it shows us how old a fossil is, and I have a better vocabulary to describe different species of early man. So was it entertaining? For the most part, yes. Learning about the top paleontologists and the different skills they had, their different personalities, their arguments and their support of each other made it seem like I could have been there, helping in some little way (and pretending to also be a scientist). There's also dangerous people in some of those dig sites in Africa, and the scientists have to have armed men with them. There's a few scares, etc.

BE AWARE...Johanson narrates his own book, and at first you might be annoyed at this choice because he has a slightly weird, slow voice. It's the only book I've ever changed the speed for. I put in on about 1.4 to speed him up to a normal conversation speed, and it was fine. In the end, I enjoyed that he was the reader because his voice is the actual, real world voice that would have been there in those dig sites, and I came to think of him as someone I knew. If you imagine being there with them, well, it's makes for a good experience.

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4 people found this helpful

narration

It was such a pleasure to hear the narration by the discoverer of the fossil - you can almost feel the excitement of unearthing the bones in his retelling of the tale.

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I Love LUCY.

A bit dated and the jury might still be out on where Australopithecus Afarensis stands in the grand riddle of human origins but the story of discovery and the human behaviors that surround it, is timeless. A great read and a compelling work. Bravo!

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Now We’re Talking❗️

This offering is filled to overflowing with new information in a most acceptable package. Greatly enhanced is that the author also narrates this story in a pleasing voice; not once did joy attention lapse and remained razor focused on the topic. Really yourself for a guided tour of our human origins—like a field trip to the fossil fields of Africa. Of course, I highly recommend this audiobook to any and all students interested with our origins.
So, Mr. Johnson, with my sincere appreciation — — — I thank you.
Keith Seidel

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