A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Human Story Retold Through Our Genes

I heard Adam Rutherford on a Peaceful Science podcast and was stimulated to buy this book. I am impressed with how well he writes. I'm not a biologist but found myself getting into the story of humanity Rutherford was telling. I found myself eager to keep reading to see how the story at hand would end. He has an easy style and recognizes that genetic and genomic science is new to many readers and seeks to explain the terms he uses. He helpfully included a glossary of terms in the back which I used often enough to remind myself until I was confident I understood the terms as he later used them. I also appreciated how he situates science in the project of human knowing. Science is ever learning, ever correcting, and so we should need to keep revisiting the story science tells of humanity as "we" learn more.I very much enjoyed Chapter 5, "The End of Race." I think this is a significant chapter for us as we think about current issues of racial injustice. He wrote (p. 218): "Racism is hateful bullying, and a means of reinforcing self-identity at the expense of others: Whatever you are, you're not one of us. If there is on thing that my own torturous family tree demonstrates it is that families make a mockery of racial epithets, and racial definitions as used in common parlance are deeply problematic. Modern genetics has shown just that, too, and I'll be navigating through some of the data on that in the next few pages. But here is the idea I will be investigating: There are no essential genetic elements for any particular group of people who might be identified as a 'race.' As far as genetics is concerned, race does not exist." He brings up and explores the irony that his "The science of genetics was founded specifically on the study of racial inequality, by a racist. The history of my field," Rutherford writes, "is inextricably intertwined with ideas that we now find toxic: racism, empire, prejudice, and eugenics." (p. 219). He later says, still in chapter 5, "Genetically, two black people are more likely to be more different to each other than a black person and a white person." (p. 235) Read that last quotation again. He then says, "In other words, while the physical differences are clearly visible between a white and a black person, the total amount of difference is smaller that between two black people." (p. 235)A few pages later (p. 237) he notes, "The unglamorous truth is that there are but a handful of uniquely human traits that we have clearly demonstrated are adaptations evolved to thrive in specific geographical regions. Skin color is one. The ability to digest milk is another..."I found this to be a timely book, one that I felt I needed to read. But it soon became a fun book that turned out to be a delight to read. As you read this book, you will find yourself as I found myself in the story that Adam Rutherford told. It really is A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived.

A refreshing look at history through the lens of DNA/genes. This book is not a history of everyone who ever lived, but it provides a fairly wide accounting of history examined mainly from genes' point of view. A lot of examples and case studies mentioned the book come from the UK or other European countries, and therefore some readers might feel disconnected at times. Nonetheless, these example provides great insight on how genes throughout history has shaped and continue to shape humans. The book also includes an interesting, and perhaps controversial, discussion of race and how it relates to genes.Overall a recommended read

This is a first rate book on a new, fast-moving and complex subject. Adam Rutherford is a geneticist but also an excellent writer, clear, interesting, and amusing. Included in his book is the following: State of the art knowledge about ancient Homo sapiens migrations and about our species’ interbreeding with other human species; what genetics has to say about historic plagues; the vexed nature of relations between geneticists and Native Americans; the surprising age of the most recent common ancestor of everyone alive (3,600 years); the genetic similarity of all members of Homo sapiens; the story of Richard III’s corpse; inbreeding in European Royal Families; what genetics has to say about race (it is a largely meaningless concept); the significance of the Human Genome Project; the extraordinary complexity of DNA and its workings; the limitations of Mendeleev’s concept of discrete genes and the difficulties in determining heritability; and how epigenetics affects gene expression.As can be seen from the selection of topics that I have listed above, Dr. Rutherford does not stick strictly to the title of his book. It is more in the nature of a discussion of recent discoveries in human genetics. And one that is well worth reading.There are, I found, reasonable questions that the book raises but does not answer. One is of sample size. Dr. Rutherford praises two studies highly, one concerned with the DNA of Britain and the other with the genetic foundations of Europe. The first study is based on whole genome DNA from 2039 selected, living people. The other involves nine people buried over a period of 3,000 thousand years. It seems to me that some justification is required to draw general conclusions about Britain’s genetic history or that of Europe from such small samples (small compared to the populations concerned). A second question arises from the surprisingly recent date for the most recent living ancestor of all living humans. Dr. Rutherford does give some qualitative explanations but I would have liked a simplified calculation showing that the number is of the right order of magnitude. Finally, in my wish list, the early work on population genetics (up to about ten years ago) was based on MtDNA and Y-chromosome (the maternal and paternal ancestral lines). At that time those methodologies appeared to provide information that has not yet been extracted from the whole genome data. Yet the results from these earlier studies seem to be ignored. An explanation would have been helpful.However, these omissions are of minor importance compared to what the book does offer and in my assessment it fully deserves a five star rating.

O autor nos convida para acompanhá-lo numa visão objetiva da nossa evolução

This book is brilliantly written, and supports in a very passionate, but cautious, fashion the role of genes in our very person. The book is captivating and not short of brilliant. A recommended read for 13+ (maybe more suited for 18+).

EXCELENTE LIBRO

This is a fascinating and very readable book. Highly recommended for the general reader, you do not have to be an expert on genetics to really enjoy this book.

"There are no eureka moments, there are few truly revolutionary findings, and paradigms shift (...) at glacial rates. We chip away at the edges of the unknown, a never-ending jigsaw puzzle."This book, wow. It effortlessly decompiles the social constructs we live with every day, including the fake notion that our fate is sealed in our DNA and the flawed idea of race. It tackles these topics efficiently, allowing a science-literate reader to understand the difficult topic of genetics. The language of genetics is fairly advanced, however, and I feel in some cases words were not aptly described in the main body of the text. This is partially offset by the inclusion of a glossary, but I believe if the reader was not science-literate, this book would likely serve to confuse them more.Its discussion global human history was highly engaging. The book does well to relate to its target audience and was thoroughly enjoyable from start to end. Learning about how recent the common ancestor of all Homo sapiens only lived 3500 years ago was quite the shock!The quote at the start of this review was chosen because it perfectly encapsulates what this book stands for. There are no magical solutions to scientific problems, everything is just one giant "jigsaw".I would comfortably rate this book a 4.7/5, definitely worth a read!