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The Incredible Human Journey
Alice Roberts has been travelling the world - from Ethiopian desert to Malay peninsula and from Russian steppes to Amazon basin - in order to understand the challenges that early humans faced as they tried to settle continents. On her travels she has witnessed some of the daunting and brutal challenges our ancestors had to face: mountains, deserts, oceans, changing climate...more
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How did we get here? Where did we come from? You and I; Homo Sapien. The Modern Human. If like me, you've often pondered these questions then look no further. Following Alice Roberts on her 6 month journey 'out of Africa' as she follows in the footsteps of our ancient ancestors across the planet. TIHJ is well written and thoroughly enlightening, Dr Roberts obvious enthusiasm for the subject lifts what could at times be a dry subject. Her writing works best when she writes from experience, the ta...more
Feb 05, 2012
Isis
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Beginners, laypeople
Shelves:
palaeolithic-2-6m-to-12000bce-factu
I have to confess, I thoroughly enjoyed the television programme of the same name produced by the BBC and presented by Alice Roberts. It was all fairly basic stuff, but seeing as how I’m no specialist in Palaeolithic migration it was also chock full of little titbits here and there that I had simply never picked up on before, the filmography was gorgeous, and all in all it was a really enjoyable, interesting and engaging programme. So, naturally, I had my eye on this book for a while before I fi...more
You can't help but like Dr Alice Roberts. Though best known as a co-presenter on the BBC series "Coast", she has been involved in a number of other TV projects of which this was the most noteworthy. We appreciate her for the passion for her subject, her infectious smile and childlike excitement as well as a reluctant sex symbol for men who like nerdy, intelligent women with an inner child for anthropology. It must be noted that she is no mere eye candy or real life Dana Scully, but an accomplish...more
This was fascinating in many ways, hugely frustrating in others.
Some incredible stories and evidence of how humans spread across the globe. I particularly enjoyed Prof. Roberts' stays with indigenous peoples and her musings on how our ancestors in those areas made their living, relating them to modern day humans.
One of my frustrations arose from the repetitive nature of the book. There is an awful lot of detail that to the non-academic seems to be told in the same way time after time (descripti...more
Some incredible stories and evidence of how humans spread across the globe. I particularly enjoyed Prof. Roberts' stays with indigenous peoples and her musings on how our ancestors in those areas made their living, relating them to modern day humans.
One of my frustrations arose from the repetitive nature of the book. There is an awful lot of detail that to the non-academic seems to be told in the same way time after time (descripti...more
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The book of a BBC programme, Roberts travels the world meeting scientists and others who can help her tell the story of how humans spread out of Africa, across the face of our planet. This is a mostly easy read, with some nice sketch diagrams, in which disagreements are brought to life through reports of encounters with some of the personalities involved. However, although a little dated now, I preferred Jared Diamond's treatment in The Third Chimpanzee.
A very good read, with equal emphasis on the travelogue-component as well as the informative part. It reads almost like a detective novel at times, with all the different views being presented from different corners, with the difference that here the "whodunnit" is non-existent, and the mystery is about "how" & "when". The book answers many questions, raises a good many, and frustrates some readers to the point of searching for a book that is more authoritative & complete. Overall, a nic...more
The subject matter is probably more interesting than Roberts make it. The fact this is based on a TV series is fairly obvious - it's very episodic, and Roberts' writing gets repetitive at times. Could probably do with more of a conclusion at the end, a brief "what have we learnt" kind of thing.
brilliant piece of writing
A good grounding in the Out of Africa theory of palaeoanthropology for those (like me) that don't have a science background, but sometimes I got the impression that Dr. Roberts isn't as comfortable with story telling as she is science, but that's a minor quibble.
KOBOBOOKS
Reviewed by The Guardian
Reviewed by The Guardian
For me a fascinating introduction to how early modern humans may have populated the world. It describes tools, techniques and recent discoveries in the field of archaeology and genetics which show how humans have spread over the globe.
Really interesting but all the scientific language made it hard to read.
An interesting topic but a stodgy read.
Jun 13, 2013
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