The Great Human Diasporas: The History of Diversity and Evolution

by Francesco Cavalli-Sforza, Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Francesco Cavalli Sforza, et al.

Book Overview

Based on over 30 years of his research, Luigi Cavalli-Sforza recounts what is known about human evolution. He adopts an accessible style and ends with a prediction about the genetic future of mankind and the likely results of the Human Genome Project.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0201407558
• ISBN13: 9780201407556
• Release Date: July 1995
• Publisher: Addison Wesley Publishing Company
• Length: 300 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Really good, I Recommend it

Ok, this will be a short one. The book is really good, I recommend it vastly. As a molecular biologist I am impressed with the expertise of L. L. Cavalli-Sforza in varios areas of science. He does not only manage to comunicate in an easy manner the complexities of genetics and molecular biology (related to this subject), but also accomplishes to clarify lots of linguistic information gathered through his life studies. This last topic was the hardest for me to understand, though I believe language studies are not easy. So, as said in the beginning, this book is highly recommended.

Facinating History of how human types & languages developed

So easy to read: no science degree required. And so full of the actual scientific information, that I could also play armchair scientist, develop my own theories a few pages ahead of the authors' telling me theirs, and shout AHA! or groan "AW" as further reading showed if I had understood, or not.The author has been studying for sixty years what we can learn now, from differences in human body types, body chemistry, and DNA, about the past travels of the human race as it came to populate the entire world. I am astonished at how far I could see into the distant past through their work and words.Words are a second theme of the book, how languages in general seem also, like modern people, to have had one ancient source and then diversified as early humans expanded. He shows how frequently languages spread without the populations involved being in any way replaced, and explains how some changes, such as inventing farming, were so beneficial that not only the new tongues but also the new body types spread widely from small original sources.There are apparently four great streams of body types: African; Australian; what is called Caucasian; and what is considered Asian, with the last two at different times providing peoples who still have descendants living all the way from Span to different populations of American Indians. Languages seem to include mainly the results of the four body types plus the results of four separate independent inventions of farming, in Palestine, in north China, in south China, and in central America. Finally the gunpowder and trading revolution in Europe largely replaced American languages, and then the industrial revolution, like farming, vastly expanded our total numbers.It is fascinating to understand how the body type and language migrations left traces here and there around the globe that on the surface imply that there is no order to our genetic or linguistic inheritances, but that can be explained on historical grounds as relics of great and ancient migrations.Finally the authors turn to a third theme, which I suspect is their motivation not only for the book but also for the work that made it possible. The Cavalli-Sforzas explain in detail how very similar all peoples are in both genetic heritage and in measurable ability.We are all brothers and sisters and perhaps may come to treat each other more as all our great religions and philosophies suggest that we should, if we can come to better understand and accept our common heritages.

A fascinating wide-ranging account of human genetic history.

An extraordinarily clear account of the many interrelated issues in science and archaeology that contribute to our current understanding of human development. After reading any number of books touching on the same material, it was refreshing to read such lucid and literate explanations of so many complex issues. Most of all I was impressed by the way that personal opinion was clearly stated and not disguised as fact. A tour-de-force!

A superb, informed discourse on genetics, race and evolution

Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, a well known and respected geneticist, has teamed up with his son, Francesco Cavalli-Sforza, to write a superb, well-informed, literate, and easy to read book on genetics, race, and evolution. Using the elder Cavalli-Sforza's own research and that of others, the team weaves a story, starting with research on the pygmies, that entertains as well as informs. I am a scientist, but not a geneticist; what I particularly liked about this book is that it spoke in non-jargon language, yet did not shy away from the sophistication and complexity involved in the subject matter. I also liked and applauded the way the authors forthrightly and honestly dealt with subjects of controversy, such as the concept of race, racism, race and IQ, and so forth. Their destruction of the arguments of Jensen, Shockley and Herrnstein that the differences in IQ between Blacks and whites is genetic is beautiful and complete. This is a wonderful book for the layperson as well as the expert who wishes to read outside his or her field.