A Story of Us: A New Look at Human Evolution

Lesley Newson · Pete Richerson

May 2021 · Highbridge Audio · Narrated by Mike Cooper

About this audiobook

In a few decades, a torrent of new evidence and ideas about human evolution has allowed scientists to piece together a more detailed understanding of what went on thousands and even millions of years ago. We now know much more about the problems our ancestors faced, the solutions they found, and the trade-offs they made. Our species' unique capacity for culture began to evolve millions of years ago, but it only really took off in the last few hundred thousand years. This capacity allowed our ancestors to survive and raise their difficult children during times of extreme climate chaos. Understanding how this has evolved can help us understand the cultural change and diversity that we experience today. Lesley Newson and Peter Richerson, a husband-and-wife team based at the University of California, Davis, have spent years researching and collaborating with scholars from a wide range of disciplines to produce a deep history of humankind. In A Story of Us, they present this rich narrative and explain how the evolution of our genes relates to the evolution of our cultures. Newson and Richerson take listeners through seven stages of human evolution, beginning seven million years ago with the apes that were the ancestors of humans and today's chimps and bonobos. The story ends in the present day and offers a glimpse into the future.

About the author

Lesley Newson is a research associate at the University of California, Davis. Her first career was as a science communicator. She was a writer and producer of radio and television science programs for the BBC and has also written a number of books, including Devastation! and All About People.

Peter J. Richerson is Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at the University of California, Davis. He has coauthored several books with Robert Boyd, including Culture and the Evolutionary Process and Not by Genes Alone.

Mike Cooper is a British voice talent who left big-city life in London for a log cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Mike is recognizable from his years with the BBC World Service, and as the narrator of countless television documentaries.