The Ancestor’s Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Life

A fully updated edition of one of the most original accounts of evolution ever written, featuring new fractal diagrams, six new ‘tales’ and the latest scientific developments.

The Ancestor’s Tale is a dazzling, four-billion-year pilgrimage to the origins of life: Richard Dawkins and Yan Wong take us on an exhilarating reverse journey through evolution, from present-day humans back to the microbial beginnings of life. It is a journey happily interrupted by meetings of fellow modern animals (as well as plants, fungi and bacteria) similarly tracing their evolutionary path back through history. As each evolutionary pilgrim tells their tale, Dawkins and Wong shed light on topics such as speciation, sexual selection and extinction.

Written with unparalleled wit, clarity and intelligence; taking in new scientific discoveries of the past decade; and including new ‘tales’, illustrations and fractal diagrams, The Ancestor’s Tale shows us how remarkable we are, how astonishing our history, and how intimate our relationship with the rest of the living world.