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Random House Publishing Group
June 2010
On Sale: June 8, 2010
272 pages
ISBN: 1400062152
EAN: 9781400062157
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
In The Journey of Man, renowned geneticist and
anthropologist Spencer Wells traced human evolution back to
our earliest ancestors, creating a remarkable and readable
map of our distant past. Now, in his thrilling new book, he
examines our cultural inheritance in order to find the
turning point that led us to the path we are on today, one
he believes we must veer from in order to
survive.nnPandora’s Seed takes us on a powerful and
provocative globe-trotting tour of human history, back to a
seminal event roughly ten thousand years ago, when our
species made a radical shift in its way of life: We became
farmers rather than hunter-gatherers, setting in motion a
momentous chain of events that could not have been foreseen
at the time.nnAlthough this decision to control our own
food supply is what propelled us into the modern world,
Wells demonstrates—using the latest genetic and
anthropological data—that such a dramatic shift in lifestyle
had a downside that we’re only now beginning to recognize.
Growing grain crops ultimately made humans more sedentary
and unhealthy and made the planet more crowded. The
expanding population and the need to apportion limited
resources such as water created hierarchies and
inequalities. The desire to control—and no longer cooperate
with—nature altered the concept of religion, making deities
fewer and more influential, foreshadowing today’s
fanaticisms. The proximity of humans and animals bred
diseases that metastasized over time. Freedom of movement
and choice were replaced by a pressure to work that is the
forebear of the anxiety and depression millions feel today.
Wells offers a hopeful prescription for altering a life to
which we were always ill suited, recommending that we change
our priorities and self-destructive appetites before it’s
too late.nnA riveting and accessible scientific detective
story, Pandora’s Seed is an eye-opening book for anyone
fascinated by the past and concerned about the future.
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