"Genetic research is now about to end our long misadventure with the idea of race," science writer Olson (Shaping the Future) states in this engaging reevaluation of humanity's collective self-image. Olson digests the recent findings of geneticists, linguists and archeologists. Despite people's outward physical differences, he assures readers, mitochondrial DNA does not lie: every one of the six billion people on the planet today is descended from a single "Eve" who lived in Eastern Africa around 150,000 years ago. The causes of physical diversity—which he calls "the single most important question in all of human biology"—are natural selection and "genetic happenstance." The notion of biologically based racial differences in habits, temperament or lifestyle, Olson argues, is pure bunk. He traces the history of human civilization in five regions of the world—Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Australia, and Europe and the Americas, plus a final chapter on Hawaii—to explain how physical differences originated and to provide evidence of our essential sameness. Noteworthy are his fine chapters on encounters between Neanderthals and our early modern forebears; the way agriculture spawned ethnicity, kinship and nationalism in the Middle East; and the basic similarities among the more than 5,000 languages spoken on the planet. Though Olson spreads himself a little thin tackling the origins of race and
the origins of language in a single concise volume, this is an engaging and fast-paced look at a subject that has profound implications for our everyday lives. (May)
