The Origin of Humankind Audiobook By Richard Leakey cover art

The Origin of Humankind

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The Origin of Humankind

By: Richard Leakey
Narrated by: John Curless
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"The name Leakey is synonymous with the study of human origins", wrote The New York Times. The renowned family of paleontologists - Louis Leakey, Mary Leakey, and their son Richard Leakey - has vastly expanded our understanding of human evolution.

The Origin of Humankind is Richard Leakey's personal view of the development of Homo sapiens. At the heart of his new picture of evolution is the introduction of a heretical notion: Once the first apes walked upright, the evolution of modern humans became possible and perhaps inevitable. From this one evolutionary step comes all the other evolutionary refinements and distinctions that set the human race apart from the apes.

In fascinating sections on how and why modern humans developed a social organization, culture, and personal behavior, Leakey has much of interest to say about the development of art, language, and human consciousness.

©1994 Sherma, B.V. (P)2018 Recorded Books Anthropology Biological Sciences Biology Evolution Evolution & Genetics Science
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An unbiased study of an incredible family’s exceptional life. Bringing the science of our human history into focus

Quiet solid science,

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Leakey is a big hitter in paleoanthropology. This book is why his batting average is MVP land.
This guy suffered a lot and delivered more. Bravo Zulu sapien stalwart.

No Monkey Business

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Richard Leakey is the son of Louis and Mary Leakey, whose paleoanthropological discoveries account for the basis of what we know about the origin of Homo in Africa. He was not at first interested in following their example, but he could not escape their influence, and he later became a paleoanthropologist himself. This book is his account of how our biped ancestors evolved, informed by his unique lifelong experience of the discovery of their fossils and the scholarly anthropological milieu surrounding what became the practically incontrovertible out-of-Africa theory of human origins. It's not the defining work about the centrality of bipedalism to how we came to be what we are, but it's extremely valuable as a sort of independent or parallel view, rather like Wallace's co-discovery with Darwin of natural selection as the driver of evolution. It's very well written and, if anything, narrated even better. The listener gets a good sense of Richard Leakey the person that does not distract from Richard Leakey the anthropologist's story of how those bipeds became humans over a several-million-year span.

A Unique Perspective on the Very Earliest Humans

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Really enjoyed this book. As I’ve grown older, I am trying to learn more and more about the physical world around us. This book is a really good summation on the origins of Homo sapiens and what sets us apart. I particularly liked the discussion on self-awareness and the origins of art and ritualistic burial. Highly recommend.

Clear and Concise Writing

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Started really strong. Than fizzled out. Some of the info was interesting but seemed like a lot of filler. Not sure I would recommend.

Fizzled out

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