Transcendence : how humans evolved through fire, language, beauty, and time / Gaia Vince.
Material type:![Text](/opac-tmpl/lib/famfamfam/BK.png)
- text
- unmediated
- volume
- 9780465094905
- 0465094902
Item type | Home library | Collection | Call number | Materials specified | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
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Main Library | NonFiction | 599.938 V767 | Available | 33111009582996 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
In the tradition of Guns, Germs, and Steel and Sapiens, a winner of the Royal Society Prize for Science Books shows h ow four tools enabled has us humans to control the destiny of our species
"A wondrous, visionary work." --Tim Flannery, scientist and author of the bestselling The Weather Makers
What enabled us to go from simple stone tools to smartphones? How did bands of hunter-gatherers evolve into multinational empires? Readers of Sapiens will say a cognitive revolution -- a dramatic evolutionary change that altered our brains, turning primitive humans into modern ones -- caused a cultural explosion. In Transcendence , Gaia Vince argues instead that modern humans are the product of a nuanced coevolution of our genes, environment, and culture that goes back into deep time. She explains how, through four key elements -- fire, language, beauty, and time -- our species diverged from the evolutionary path of all other animals, unleashing a compounding process that launched us into the Space Age and beyond. Provocative and poetic, Transcendence shows how a primate took dominion over nature and turned itself into something marvelous.
"January 2020"--Title page verso.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 281-325) and index.
Introduction -- Genesis. 1. Conception ; 2. Birth -- Fire. 3. Landscaping ; 4. Brain building ; 5. Cultural levers -- Word. 6. Story ; 7. Language ; 8. Telling -- Beauty. 9. Belonging ; 10. Trinkets and treasures ; 11. Builders -- Time. 12. Timekeepers ; 13. Reason ; 14. Homni.
What enabled us to go from simple stone tools to smartphones? How did bands of hunter-gatherers evolve into multinational empires? Readers of Sapiens will say a cognitive revolution -- a dramatic evolutionary change that altered our brains, turning primitive humans into modern ones -- caused a cultural explosion. In Transcendence, Gaia Vince argues instead that modern humans are the product of a nuanced coevolution of our genes, environment, and culture that goes back into deep time. She explains how, through four key elements -- fire, language, beauty, and time -- our species diverged from the evolutionary path of all other animals, unleashing a compounding process that launched us into the Space Age and beyond. Provocative and poetic, Transcendence shows how a primate took dominion over nature and turned itself into something marvelous.