A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived - The Human Story Retold Through Our Genes

I was most definitely not the intended audience for this book, but I also dislike Rutherford’s style; I did not get much past Part I. I had hoped that the book would be an update and elaboration of the books by Spencer Wells – now "we have approximately 150,000 fully sequenced human genomes, and useful samplings from literally millions of people, from all over the world." Rutherford’s stated objective in Part I is “the rewriting of the past using genetics, from a time when there were at least four human species on Earth right up to the kings of Europe into the eighteenth century." In fact he seems keener to combat the misunderstandings behind racism, eugenics, and the claims of the DNA ancestry kits, all of which I have sympathy with, but I think these objectives could have been accomplished with less repetition, more simply, and more clearly.

Rutherford tends to bury the important points, or the important points to me, such as the origin of Native Americans, in a very discursive style, so that they can get lost. Some claims particularly important to his agenda should have been introduced earlier, to make clear where he is coming from, and treated more skeptically – they are based on the work of a mathematical modeler: “One fifth of people alive a millennium ago in Europe are the ancestors of no one alive today. Conversely, the remaining 80 percent are the ancestor of everyone living today” (by which Rutherford means that they would all appear in an ancestral tree for anyone with a European in his/her ancestry and I will not try to make “a European” more well defined).“ Chang concluded in 2003 that the most recent common ancestor of everyone alive today on Earth lived only around 3,400 years ago." Rutherford cites that there is DNA evidence (one paper) for the first claim, but there is no discussion of how much confidence we can put in Chang’s assumptions, and in fact one assumption was refined before the second claim was made.

Anyway, the ancestors of Native Americans “had split from known populations in Siberian Asia some 40,000 years ago, come across Beringia, and stayed put until around 16,000 years ago." "Today, the emerging theory is that the people up in the Bluefish Caves some 24,000 years ago were the founders" - the Bluefish Caves are actually in the Canadian Yukon. As I read elsewhere, and is alluded to here, the dispersal to South America followed a coastal route using boats. On another topic, "The stigma of a genetic predisposition to alcoholism remains among Native Americans to this day, despite the fact that it is a claim not rooted in fact." This fact is not elaborated on.

Current humans have both Neanderthal and Denisovan genes from intermarriage, peoples who left Africa before us and split from us hundreds of millions of years ago. For homo sapiens the out of Africa hypothesis remains “intact in principle but the dates and overall flow have changed (modern humans in Siberia 100k years ago)”. Interestingly, “the Denisovan genome looks slightly more different from ours than it should. What this implies, according to Reich and others, is that they also had admixed and interbred with another species, one for whom we have no DNA to compare. A ghost population, a group of humans who are only known by the spectral presence they left in DNA ."

Much DNA research has been done using the great data available in Iceland, which has had very little immigration since the “era of settlement”. Since the population is small, there is the danger in marriage of the type of problems which occur from incest, with harmful recessive genes being expressed. Fortunately, today, people dating “can link their apps on their smart phones together to see how they are related, and genealogical proximity sets off the Sifjaspellsspillir alarm—the incest spoiler."

I was very disappointed in this book. Usually I like books that combine science with history but not when they get facts wrong. The author states that grizzly polar bear hybrids are infertile but they are not. He attributes the name Charlemagne as the source of the word for king but it is not. There was nothing new for me in the book and the writing was not particularly good.

This book presents a view of the earliest human migrations and development based on DNA analysis. However, it was long on argumentativeness and short on detail, and in the end, not worth the time to read.

I am very interested in this topic, and have read a lot about our genetic origins (this book came up in a suggestion after finishing another). I found this to be incredibly dry and boring. Unlike a writer like Malcolm Gladwell, who takes very complicated subjects and crystallizes them into compelling stories, the author, while illuminating a few interesting tid-bits, is just not making a fascinating topic very interesting to a layperson (a relatively smart, highly educated layperson).
He makes many points about the junk science behind sensationalist dna-based genetic claims in the popular press. We get it. Not worth an entire book.

Public DNA testing to determine one's ancestral origins and possibly find lost relatives has become something of a fad in recent years. But to really understand our origins, as well as everyone else's, we need to move well beyond surface appearances and grasp the essence of what it means to be human, constructed as we are through the action of some 20,000 genes. The first small group of distinct homo-sapiens appeared some 200,000 years ago in east Africa and began their migration into the rest of the world about 100,000 years ago.

One area surveyed by the author concerns the fallacy of the concept of race. Genetic data shows clearly that variances within accepted 'racial groups' is more pronounced than the differences between them. In other words the genetic differences between a resident of Beijing and a fellow asian from Hanoi would be greater than between the person from Beijing and someone from London. The point being that the gene set responsible for color pales in comparison to the multitude of other traits and characteristics that constitute an individual. And this is the same for any specific physical or psychological aspect of a particular individual. Of course genetics is only part of the picture and doesn't consider cultural differences. But, from a purely physical perspective, the genetic data hardly supports racial separations.

Another revealing insight arising from the data is that virtually every human characteristic is the result of the interaction of a set of genes acting through their agents, the proteins, despite the original hope that traits might be identified with individual genes. This revelation has dramatic implications with regard to health and medicine. There was hope that with the completion of the multibillion dollar effort to map the human genome that matching diseases and disorders with specific genes that rapid advances in medical treatment would be forthcoming. While advances are being made the intricacies and interconnectedness of genes and proteins have resulted in much slower advances than hope for.

Today's state of genetic research is also revealing that several species of human existed at the same time - species that could mate and birth viable offspring. Historically, for example, it was thought that Neanderthals and human were so dissimilar that successfully mating was impossible and that homo-sapiens were so antagonistic to Neanderthals that they were totally responsible for Neanderthal extinction. Humans may indeed have hastened the passing of Neanderthals but they also seem to have had some attraction to one another with most Europeans today having received an average of 2.4% of their genes from Neanderthals.

The author also concludes that evolution continues today and will in the future. Within a decade or so there will be some 9 billion individuals on planet earth, barring catastrophe. And, within each individual, the same mutability that has been occurring since the first of our kind awakened to awareness continues to create mutations in each individual. Whether favorable mutations would result in species wide adaptation is more problematic due to our vast numbers.

My comments have addressed several areas that intrigued me the most. There is much more covered between the covers. It is a worthy read for anyone interested in genetics and inheritance.

Can't Recommend. The author often goes off on opinionated tangents unrelated to the subject matter. Sexual orientation tangents, Marxist tangents, gun-control tangents, and lots of other random blather. When he does this, he mistakes his opinion for fact. This causes the reader to have to check up on everything else he states. The book is also VERY repetitive.

I am baffled by the positive reviews that this sophomoric pseudo-scholarly mishmash has received. While Rutherford's topic has exceptional contemporary relevance and interest, his superficial, repetitious, and disorganized writing becomes progressively more irritating with each passing page. He seems incapable of structuring a coherent paragraph, continually getting lost in a labyrinth of uninteresting personal digressions, weak stabs at humor, non-sequiturs, bogus profundities, and grammatical bloopers. Here's a representative sample:

Red hair appearing exclusively in beards is not uncommon [NB - according to an earlier paragraph, Rutherford possesses this trait], though we don't really know why. Forgive us; it's not really been a research priority over the last few decades. The ginger twin study showed that my mutation, Val60Leu, occurred most often in "fair/blonde and light brown" hair, three things I emphatically am not. That again is typical for genetics---presence or absence of gene variants are rarely fully absent or fully present in populations. Such is the nature of human variation: We're very variable.

Needless to say, genetics is a complex topic, and authors hoping to popularize it must maintain a delicate balance: as they seek to entertain lay readers, fostering enthusiasm and intellectual excitement, they also need to clarify difficult technical concepts. Rutherford makes frequent, contrived attempts to be entertaining while investing considerably less effort in the exploration of deep scientific ideas. But I would say that both needs are subverted in the end by his amateurish and haphazard prose. If you want to learn something about genetics and human history, save your money and read David Reich's book Who We Are and How We Got Here instead.

Rutherford does a brilliant job of explaining all manner of interesting things about us (we humans) through our genetic code, from how the human genome shows the spread of our species world-wide, to the scientific meaninglessness of "race", to the mechanics of inherited characteristics and fascinating details of the human genome, to broad speculation about how we as a species are continuing to evolve. For a lay-person such as myself, it was fascinating reading, the scientific concepts clearly explained.

This alone warrants a fie-star review, but I also enjoyed reading Rutherford's work because so much of the author comes through in his writing - he is witty, even funny (the book is rich with asides and personal narratives related to the topics at hand) with multiple allusions that broke up what in less talented hands would become a dry and dull text.

In a time of spit-in-a-tube DNA tests, Rutherford does much to clarify what exactly these tests show, and what is wild (and unscientific) speculation, as well as what is sound reasoning. (His section on the Peoples of the British Isles project and on the genetic mapping taking place in Iceland were particularly interesting.) There are a number of good books on the topic (I would also recommend Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters if you want to read more on the subject),but Rutherford's is the place I recommend first.

What an absolutely enjoyable read this book was.

Going into this book I knew my knowledge of the subjects (genetics and DNA, mostly) to be discussed was elementary at best. However, after simply getting through the introduction I know that I was in for a treat. Adam Rutherford writes incredibly well, making complicated scientific jargon easily accessible to anyone with a body temperature somewhere roughly in the 90's (stole a Carlin line there). He sprinkles humorous anecdotes and historical episodes between pages of fascinating scientific exploration, even giving the reader a very quick crash-course in Darwinian evolution's essential principles along the way.

I'm looking forward to returning to his previous work "Creation" for another informative read. "A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived" is a worthwhile addition to any library. I loved it.

I very much enjoyed this book. The way that it was written was entertaining: some humor weaved into serious matters, side notes that connect the chapters of the book to one another, and overall simple language for a scientific book. Very informative and factual book from which I learned a lot of interesting facts. The author’s views on certain topics made me rethink the way I view everyday life, which is incredible (my mind is still slightly blown from the section on race). The author addresses very serious matters in a way that makes the reader almost forget the severity, because much of it is just matter-of-fact. The book is not solely facts, it is also full of interesting anecdotes that grab the reader and make them want to keep reading. 100% recommend this book to anyone. It has easily understandable language and seemingly endless fascinating facts.
-Amanda Perna

I found this book's first section, on DNA analysis of prehistoric remains, fascinating but somehow a little difficult to read. As I got further into the book I figured out part of the problem: the author thinks he's a very, very clever lad and that complicates the way he writes. Commentary on DNA studies from more recent historical times was still interesting, but the closer the author comes to the present the more politically correct he becomes. OK, genetic research has in the past been linked with racist "eugenics" programs and philosophies, but the author's position here seems to be an unscientific overreaction in the opposite direction. He earnestly assures us that "race is invisible on the genetic level", then discusses a study that quite handily sorted genetic samples into the five generally accepted racial groups, then finds an excuse to dismiss it. He also tosses his own family into the equation, blithely commingling genetic ancestry, nationality, and relationships by marriage, as if all these things were equivalent in the final analysis. When he gets into the nitty-gritty of what a gene looks like, it's so complicated the effect was to make me wonder if geneticists really know what they're doing after all. If I'd stopped at the halfway point I would have found this a much better book.

The problem with choosing "A brief history of everyone who ever lived" as a title is that it sets the bar too high. With a title like that, you would expect a magisterial book, and this is most certainly not. A more appropriate title, for me would be "A mostly interesting, but not so much coherent, collection of essays on genetics, centered -mostly- on European people, by an obviously knowledgeable author who tries too hard to be funny by using footnotes to tell puns".

Rutherford knows his subject and is passionate about it. However, his writing style is sometimes not coherent (as exemplified by a haphazard digression on the genetic map of UK people randomly inserted in the book, which I found absolutely irrelevant ) and distracting to the point to be annoying and patronizing, as it can be seen in the use of footnotes to tell jokes, personal anecdotes and unrelated comments, which I find inexcusable and disrespectful to the reader. I understand this is a popular science book and that the author is trying to be accessible, but in reality he is doing a disservice to what otherwise is a fascinating, complex, and serious matter. For a contrast in writing style, refer to no other than Siddhartha Mukherjee, who manages to tackle a similar subject with a beautiful and elegant combination of personal history, science and humor in a way that Rutherford is incapable of.

In sum, this book would have benefited greatly by a better edition job and some self-restraint from Mr. Rutherford. Save the jokes for the pub.

“The students of heredity, especially, understand all of their subject except their subject. They were, I suppose, bred and born in that brier-patch, and have really explored it without coming to the end of it. That is, they have studied everything but the question of what they are studying.”
--G.K. Chesterton, Eugenics and Other Evils.
Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of The Gene, quotes Chesterton without ever responding to his fundamental criticism. The same must be said of many other talented and skilled expositors of the history lessons now being revealed, character by character from analysis of ancient and modern DNA.
They eagerly jump into the complex histories of life that DNA analysis reveals, they exalt that evolution finally has the mechanism Darwin could only hope for, an engine for the creation of novelty and adaptation that permit natural or unnatural selection to work with. But the origin of that engine, the source of the information the DNA language provides life with, the fact that this code cannot have developed from life, but must have preceded life in any of its ancient forms, is mostly dismissed with hand waving.
Mukherjee admits that the genetic code is “astoundingly simple: there’s just one molecule that carries our hereditary information and just one code. ” But offers no further analysis of how the elegance of the code that carries the complexity of the information for life came to be.
Adam Rutherford well debunks previous evolutionary fairy tales of the history of humankind (think of the pictures museums offer of fish climbing out of the water, crawling on the beach, becoming mammals, becoming apes, becoming Neandertals, becoming Republicans) with the evidence exploding from every increasing DNA comparison and analysis. His easily readable book, A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived—the Human Story Retold Through Our Genes, admits that “DNA has profoundly revised our evolutionary story.” Then regarding the popular iconic images of evolution just mentioned, assures us “This iconic image implies something that we now know is untrue. We just don’t know that pathway of the apes that led to us…the map is full of gaps and smears.” “The more we learn, the messier the picture becomes.”
But then hastens off down through the briar patch of DNA, reading the fascinating stories DNA tells, with no exploration of the origin of the story, where the code we are reading came from, or why and how the language is there that control the adaptions and progressions of life. Instead he trots out the tired boldfaced assertions that, “There is definitely no beginning…there was no absolute point when your life began, there was no moment of creation when our species began, no spark of life, no breath of god into the nostrils of an Adam molded in the red earth, no cracking of a cosmic egg. So it goes.” So it goes? Yet your book is full of evidence of intelligently designed, elegantly expressed, perfectly adapted mechanisms that come from “nowhere, at no time, with no implications” unacceptable to Richard Dawkins ? Read your own book, Adam.
You tell us how we can now eagerly read the stories in the 3 Billion letters of human DNA. “To do that, your ingredients need to include the alphabet you’re writing in; DNA consists of only four letters, more formally called nucleotide bases—A,T,C, and G. You also need an enzyme whose job it is simply to copy and link up the bases of DNA, called a polymerase. Throw all these ingredients into a tube and set the temperature right, and…” Wait a minute, you claim there is no beginning, but you begin with an alphabet, you begin with molecules of amazing stability (DNA), served by very similar but slightly different molecules of necessary temporality (RNA). You begin with a language “universal in all living species” organized into “books, chapters, origami, and pamphlets” of complex information. You begin with “mitochondria—the tiny but powerful energy generation units that all complex life relies on. They were certainly acquired around 2 Billion years ago…” Acquired? From where, by what, or who? All complex life requires them, but they were just “acquired”? From the store.com or where?
The stories you tell are fascinating. There is not one line of human, there are at least four. The other three are not our ancestors, but we slept with them, or more likely their males slept with our females, which is understandable if the small groups say of Neanderthals met with larger groups of modern humans with many more females to attract the attention of Neanderthal males than their little clans.
So the European Neanderthals, the Asian Denisovans, and the island bound Floresien midgets were human, but not modern humans. We were the same species but not the same type of humans. We could interbreed, but only modern humans have survived to this day, left written records, and eat ice cream. (Yes the story of who can tolerate dairy products as adults, when this happened, and why, is there. )

DNA studies of the British reveal a surprising fact. The Viking raiders were good plunderers, but not very good rapists. Even after two hundred years of Viking rule with the Danelaw the law of Britain, very little DNA from the Danes or Vikings exist, except in the Orkneys. So the Vikings ruled, but did not intermingle with their subjects to any great extent. We have lots of Viking words in English, but little Viking DNA. The same can not be said of the Germanic invading Saxons, they clearly became part of Britain and their genes are scattered widely in the British genome.
Extensive study of Icelanders DNA reveals the dangers to a population that has little immigration. President Trump should be advised.
Professor Rutherford, your book and the stories so nicely told, instead of a curtsey to nihilists like Richard Dawkins, should be another piece of strong scientific evidence for the fact that all life is founded not on chance and randomness, but on information. That before there could be any forms of life to be “naturally selected” there had to be intelligently designed mechanisms expressed in exquisitely created elegant code for natural or unnatural selection to work upon. Written in an older book than yours is the key phrase G.K. Chesterton was looking for, in the beginning was not nothing, sir, in the beginning was “the Word”, and your book on DNA is a wonderful establishment of that fact.

I heard an author interview on public radio when this book was first published and was interested as I had seen the PBS TV program Nova---'The Great Human Odyssey’---initially broadcast in the fall of 2016. The program is a fascinating one about the spread of human species out of Africa to populate the other continents and adapt to their regions.

While the book begins with human origins and migration, it is really about genomics, the study of DNA, its applications, contributions and limitations. Such an effort is not unexpected given that author Rutherford is a science writer and broadcaster who studied genetics, earning his Ph.D. from University College London as he contributed to research on childhood blindness.

Part One is titled and clearly concerns ‘How We Came to Be.’ Its chapters consist of: (1) Horny and Mobile, (2) The first European Union, (3) These American Lands, and (4) When We were Kings. The author indicates (on page 8), that these sections are ‘. . . about the re-writing of the past using genetics, from a time when there were at least four human species on Earth right up to the kings of Europe into the 18th century.’ Part Two gets into ‘Who We are Now.’ Its chapters consist of: (5) The End of Race, (6) The Most Wondrous Map Ever Produced by Humankind, (7) Fate, (8) A Short Introduction to the Future of Humankind, and an Epilogue. As the author states again (on the same page), these sections ‘. . . are about who we are today and what the study of DNA in the 21st century says about families, health, psychology, and the fate of us.’

Among my favorite aspects of the book included the author’s chapter heading quotes such as the one from Kurt Vonnegut (on p. 14) about appreciating the many marvelous moments seen at one time vs. beginning/ending and causation in our books. There are the charts such as The Murky Evolutionary Shrub of Mankind (page 20), The Migration of Homo Sapiens Out of Africa (pages 38-39) and the Fine Scale Genetic Map of the People of Great Britain (page 99). Then, there are segments examining particular issues: the role of genomics in confirming the recovery of Richard III’s skeleton, the problems involved in determining native American beginnings or reasons for Adam Lanza’s behavior and the Sandy Hook massacre (e.g. presence of monoamine oxidase A – MAOA) or for traits of prominent historical figures. Apparently, ancestry is messy, where we are all a bit of everything. Evolution continues very slowly as shown by examples such human color detection by the eye (e.g. some women have 4 levels of distinction vs. the usual tricolor). As he begins to summarize, the author makes a plea that the important genetic tools that have been developed continue to be used doing the extensive work that will be required in unraveling such complex mysteries.

Clearly, this ‘Brief History’ relates to works like Mitteldorf’s Cracking the Aging Code: The New Science of Growing Old - And What It Means for Staying Young , Topol’s The Creative Destruction of Medicine: How the Digital Revolution Will Create Better Health Care , Zak’s Trust Factor: The Science of Creating High-Performance Companies , Coates’ Between the World and Me and Paglia’s Free Women, Free Men: Sex, Gender, Feminism .

The breadth and variety of topics touched on by this book is extensive. Humanity originated over 300,000 thousand years ago, migrated 100,000 years ago multiplying from thousands of individuals during those times to some 7 billion today. While the book contains 685,000 letters used as an analogy for this time scale, recorded history would amount to one letter. When finishing the book, I found myself agreeing with the author’s early remarks (page 9). Namely, “Humans love telling stories. We’re a species that craves narratives, and more specifically narrative satisfaction----explanation, a way of making sense of things, and the ineffable complexities of being human----beginnings, middles, and ends. When we started studying the genome, what we wanted to find there were narratives that tidied up the mysteries of history and culture and individual identity that told us exactly who we were and why. Our wishes were not satisfied. The human genome turned out to be far more . . . complicated than anyone anticipated . . ."

I learned so much from this book! From now on, when I hear or read a report on genetic findings, I will do so with an awareness that much of how this is presented in the media is shallow, misleading, and possibly just wrong. Rutherford eloquently sets the record straight! He is an excellent writer for the non-scientist's understanding of concepts and principles, and he brings us through pre-history and history by illustrating how science's current understanding of genetics, though very incomplete, has enhanced and altered our understanding of how humans (and others!) have evolved. There are so many eye-opening things about this book, and the story is told with such wonderfully understandable examples, that I count this as possibly the most important book about current scientific research and findings I have ever read. Bravo for a work well-done!

I enjoyed this book for many reasons. The first thing which stood out to me was that it is humbling for homo sapiens as a species. What I mean by this is, is that in the grand scheme of things, life on Earth, we really have not been around that long.Throughout the book Rutherford really dives into what is wrong with society's view on the history of our species, and uses genetics as a tool to do so. For so long we have been taught this idea of a linear evolution of our species, when that is not the case it is actually much more complicated. He finds a way to explain it, and does it in a way that anyone, not just scientists or science majors, can understand. I recommended it to a friend obtaining a PhD in Latin History, he was able to understand all of the genetics material discussed, and he loved it.
What I took most from the book was understanding that contrary to what I think most of the time as an undergraduate biology student genetics is not everything. Would it be interesting to do an ancestry test and find out about my Irish heritage a bit more? Of course, but knowing my DNA is not the equivalent of finding out exactly who I am. It is a bit of a nature and a bit of nurture. The same can be said in the medical field. When we were working on the Human Genome Project in the 1990s and early 2000s we thought it would give us so much information on genetic diseases and how to treat them relatively quickly. What we found is that it is a lot more complicated than what we originally thought. Some genetic diseases are caused by an allele of one specific gene, but most are caused by the interplay of multiple variants of multiple genes and environmental factors. This can be seen as frustrating for scientists realizing we have a lot more to learn and to do, but Rutherford suggests instead of getting discouraged we continue to pushing forward and keep working.
I would recommend this to anyone it is academically stimulating but at the same time can be understood by anyone of any educational background.

I enjoyed this book because it was relatively simple to understand. It referenced many recent studies and synthesized them in a way that makes complicated scientific jargon accessible to readers of all different backgrounds. Rutherford does a great job of explaining scientific concepts in a way that makes sense. His inclusion of recent research makes the book intriguing because you feel like you are learning about scientific research as it is happening! I also really liked the theme of an interdisciplinary approach being needed to write history. Rutherford explains how the field of genomics can be used to enhance our current understand of history by looking within the genomes of modern day organisms or within genomes of fossil samples. This book is a great introduction to understanding the scientific discoveries that have been made through genome sequencing and advancements in technology. It discusses cultural impacts as well, which is another aspect of this book that is so entertaining and applicable to the "real world." You genuinely get the full picture of how culture, genetics, anthropology, and other fields combine to give us a greater understanding of the world and its history. Rutherford even explores some controversial topics and touches on ethical issues associated with sequencing. He isn't afraid to criticize scientific findings or share his own opinion, which I really respected as a reader. This book will definitely keep you interested because of Rutherford's sense of humor and unique style of writing. I recommend this book to people of all backgrounds! From scientists to historians, anybody looking to learn a bit more about how far we have come and where we are headed should read this book.

“The students of heredity, especially, understand all of their subject except their subject. They were, I suppose, bred and born in that brier-patch, and have really explored it without coming to the end of it. That is, they have studied everything but the question of what they are studying.”
--G.K. Chesterton, Eugenics and Other Evils.
Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of The Gene, quotes Chesterton without ever responding to his fundamental criticism. The same must be said of many other talented and skilled expositors of the history lessons now being revealed, character by character from analysis of ancient and modern DNA.
They eagerly jump into the complex histories of life that DNA analysis reveals, they exalt that evolution finally has the mechanism Darwin could only hope for, an engine for the creation of novelty and adaptation that permit natural or unnatural selection to work with. But the origin of that engine, the source of the information the DNA language provides life with, the fact that this code cannot have developed from life, but must have preceded life in any of its ancient forms, is mostly dismissed with hand waving.
Mukherjee admits that the genetic code is “astoundingly simple: there’s just one molecule that carries our hereditary information and just one code. ” But offers no further analysis of how the elegance of the code that carries the complexity of the information for life came to be.
Adam Rutherford well debunks previous evolutionary fairy tales of the history of humankind (think of the pictures museums offer of fish climbing out of the water, crawling on the beach, becoming mammals, becoming apes, becoming Neandertals, becoming Republicans) with the evidence exploding from every increasing DNA comparison and analysis. His easily readable book, A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived—the Human Story Retold Through Our Genes, admits that “DNA has profoundly revised our evolutionary story.” Then regarding the popular iconic images of evolution just mentioned, assures us “This iconic image implies something that we now know is untrue. We just don’t know that pathway of the apes that led to us…the map is full of gaps and smears.” “The more we learn, the messier the picture becomes.”
But then hastens off down through the briar patch of DNA, reading the fascinating stories DNA tells, with no exploration of the origin of the story, where the code we are reading came from, or why and how the language is there that control the adaptions and progressions of life. Instead he trots out the tired boldfaced assertions that, “There is definitely no beginning…there was no absolute point when your life began, there was no moment of creation when our species began, no spark of life, no breath of god into the nostrils of an Adam molded in the red earth, no cracking of a cosmic egg. So it goes.” So it goes? Yet your book is full of evidence of intelligently designed, elegantly expressed, perfectly adapted mechanisms that come from “nowhere, at no time, with no implications” unacceptable to Richard Dawkins ? Read your own book, Adam.
You tell us how we can now eagerly read the stories in the 3 Billion letters of human DNA. “To do that, your ingredients need to include the alphabet you’re writing in; DNA consists of only four letters, more formally called nucleotide bases—A,T,C, and G. You also need an enzyme whose job it is simply to copy and link up the bases of DNA, called a polymerase. Throw all these ingredients into a tube and set the temperature right, and…” Wait a minute, you claim there is no beginning, but you begin with an alphabet, you begin with molecules of amazing stability (DNA), served by very similar but slightly different molecules of necessary temporality (RNA). You begin with a language “universal in all living species” organized into “books, chapters, origami, and pamphlets” of complex information. You begin with “mitochondria—the tiny but powerful energy generation units that all complex life relies on. They were certainly acquired around 2 Billion years ago…” Acquired? From where, by what, or who? All complex life requires them, but they were just “acquired”? From the store.com or where?
The stories you tell are fascinating. There is not one line of human, there are at least four. The other three are not our ancestors, but we slept with them, or more likely their males slept with our females, which is understandable if the small groups say of Neanderthals met with larger groups of modern humans with many more females to attract the attention of Neanderthal males than their little clans.
So the European Neanderthals, the Asian Denisovans, and the island bound Floresien midgets were human, but not modern humans. We were the same species but not the same type of humans. We could interbreed, but only modern humans have survived to this day, left written records, and eat ice cream. (Yes the story of who can tolerate dairy products as adults, when this happened, and why, is there. )

DNA studies of the British reveal a surprising fact. The Viking raiders were good plunderers, but not very good rapists. Even after two hundred years of Viking rule with the Danelaw the law of Britain, very little DNA from the Danes or Vikings exist, except in the Orkneys. So the Vikings ruled, but did not intermingle with their subjects to any great extent. We have lots of Viking words in English, but little Viking DNA. The same can not be said of the Germanic invading Saxons, they clearly became part of Britain and their genes are scattered widely in the British genome.
Extensive study of Icelanders DNA reveals the dangers to a population that has little immigration. President Trump should be advised.
Professor Rutherford, your book and the stories so nicely told, instead of a curtsey to nihilists like Richard Dawkins, should be another piece of strong scientific evidence for the fact that all life is founded not on chance and randomness, but on information. That before there could be any forms of life to be “naturally selected” there had to be intelligently designed mechanisms expressed in exquisitely created elegant code for natural or unnatural selection to work upon. Written in an older book than yours is the key phrase G.K. Chesterton was looking for, in the beginning was not nothing, sir, in the beginning was “the Word”, and your book on DNA is a wonderful establishment of that fact.

I heard an author interview on public radio when this book was first published and was interested as I had seen the PBS TV program Nova---'The Great Human Odyssey’---initially broadcast in the fall of 2016. The program is a fascinating one about the spread of human species out of Africa to populate the other continents and adapt to their regions.

While the book begins with human origins and migration, it is really about genomics, the study of DNA, its applications, contributions and limitations. Such an effort is not unexpected given that author Rutherford is a science writer and broadcaster who studied genetics, earning his Ph.D. from University College London as he contributed to research on childhood blindness.

Part One is titled and clearly concerns ‘How We Came to Be.’ Its chapters consist of: (1) Horny and Mobile, (2) The first European Union, (3) These American Lands, and (4) When We were Kings. The author indicates (on page 8), that these sections are ‘. . . about the re-writing of the past using genetics, from a time when there were at least four human species on Earth right up to the kings of Europe into the 18th century.’ Part Two gets into ‘Who We are Now.’ Its chapters consist of: (5) The End of Race, (6) The Most Wondrous Map Ever Produced by Humankind, (7) Fate, (8) A Short Introduction to the Future of Humankind, and an Epilogue. As the author states again (on the same page), these sections ‘. . . are about who we are today and what the study of DNA in the 21st century says about families, health, psychology, and the fate of us.’

Among my favorite aspects of the book included the author’s chapter heading quotes such as the one from Kurt Vonnegut (on p. 14) about appreciating the many marvelous moments seen at one time vs. beginning/ending and causation in our books. There are the charts such as The Murky Evolutionary Shrub of Mankind (page 20), The Migration of Homo Sapiens Out of Africa (pages 38-39) and the Fine Scale Genetic Map of the People of Great Britain (page 99). Then, there are segments examining particular issues: the role of genomics in confirming the recovery of Richard III’s skeleton, the problems involved in determining native American beginnings or reasons for Adam Lanza’s behavior and the Sandy Hook massacre (e.g. presence of monoamine oxidase A – MAOA) or for traits of prominent historical figures. Apparently, ancestry is messy, where we are all a bit of everything. Evolution continues very slowly as shown by examples such human color detection by the eye (e.g. some women have 4 levels of distinction vs. the usual tricolor). As he begins to summarize, the author makes a plea that the important genetic tools that have been developed continue to be used doing the extensive work that will be required in unraveling such complex mysteries.

Clearly, this ‘Brief History’ relates to works like Mitteldorf’s Cracking the Aging Code: The New Science of Growing Old - And What It Means for Staying Young , Topol’s The Creative Destruction of Medicine: How the Digital Revolution Will Create Better Health Care , Zak’s Trust Factor: The Science of Creating High-Performance Companies , Coates’ Between the World and Me and Paglia’s Free Women, Free Men: Sex, Gender, Feminism .

The breadth and variety of topics touched on by this book is extensive. Humanity originated over 300,000 thousand years ago, migrated 100,000 years ago multiplying from thousands of individuals during those times to some 7 billion today. While the book contains 685,000 letters used as an analogy for this time scale, recorded history would amount to one letter. When finishing the book, I found myself agreeing with the author’s early remarks (page 9). Namely, “Humans love telling stories. We’re a species that craves narratives, and more specifically narrative satisfaction----explanation, a way of making sense of things, and the ineffable complexities of being human----beginnings, middles, and ends. When we started studying the genome, what we wanted to find there were narratives that tidied up the mysteries of history and culture and individual identity that told us exactly who we were and why. Our wishes were not satisfied. The human genome turned out to be far more . . . complicated than anyone anticipated . . ."

I learned so much from this book! From now on, when I hear or read a report on genetic findings, I will do so with an awareness that much of how this is presented in the media is shallow, misleading, and possibly just wrong. Rutherford eloquently sets the record straight! He is an excellent writer for the non-scientist's understanding of concepts and principles, and he brings us through pre-history and history by illustrating how science's current understanding of genetics, though very incomplete, has enhanced and altered our understanding of how humans (and others!) have evolved. There are so many eye-opening things about this book, and the story is told with such wonderfully understandable examples, that I count this as possibly the most important book about current scientific research and findings I have ever read. Bravo for a work well-done!

I enjoyed this book for many reasons. The first thing which stood out to me was that it is humbling for homo sapiens as a species. What I mean by this is, is that in the grand scheme of things, life on Earth, we really have not been around that long.Throughout the book Rutherford really dives into what is wrong with society's view on the history of our species, and uses genetics as a tool to do so. For so long we have been taught this idea of a linear evolution of our species, when that is not the case it is actually much more complicated. He finds a way to explain it, and does it in a way that anyone, not just scientists or science majors, can understand. I recommended it to a friend obtaining a PhD in Latin History, he was able to understand all of the genetics material discussed, and he loved it.
What I took most from the book was understanding that contrary to what I think most of the time as an undergraduate biology student genetics is not everything. Would it be interesting to do an ancestry test and find out about my Irish heritage a bit more? Of course, but knowing my DNA is not the equivalent of finding out exactly who I am. It is a bit of a nature and a bit of nurture. The same can be said in the medical field. When we were working on the Human Genome Project in the 1990s and early 2000s we thought it would give us so much information on genetic diseases and how to treat them relatively quickly. What we found is that it is a lot more complicated than what we originally thought. Some genetic diseases are caused by an allele of one specific gene, but most are caused by the interplay of multiple variants of multiple genes and environmental factors. This can be seen as frustrating for scientists realizing we have a lot more to learn and to do, but Rutherford suggests instead of getting discouraged we continue to pushing forward and keep working.
I would recommend this to anyone it is academically stimulating but at the same time can be understood by anyone of any educational background.

I enjoyed this book because it was relatively simple to understand. It referenced many recent studies and synthesized them in a way that makes complicated scientific jargon accessible to readers of all different backgrounds. Rutherford does a great job of explaining scientific concepts in a way that makes sense. His inclusion of recent research makes the book intriguing because you feel like you are learning about scientific research as it is happening! I also really liked the theme of an interdisciplinary approach being needed to write history. Rutherford explains how the field of genomics can be used to enhance our current understand of history by looking within the genomes of modern day organisms or within genomes of fossil samples. This book is a great introduction to understanding the scientific discoveries that have been made through genome sequencing and advancements in technology. It discusses cultural impacts as well, which is another aspect of this book that is so entertaining and applicable to the "real world." You genuinely get the full picture of how culture, genetics, anthropology, and other fields combine to give us a greater understanding of the world and its history. Rutherford even explores some controversial topics and touches on ethical issues associated with sequencing. He isn't afraid to criticize scientific findings or share his own opinion, which I really respected as a reader. This book will definitely keep you interested because of Rutherford's sense of humor and unique style of writing. I recommend this book to people of all backgrounds! From scientists to historians, anybody looking to learn a bit more about how far we have come and where we are headed should read this book.

This may be the best science book I’ve read all year. Buy it for someone who is curious about the world. Read it yourself. Don’t pass it by. It’s special as far as I can tell.

As an aside: Rutherford is just cool. I don’t know a lot of geneticists, but I doubt many could casually pull out a Tupac reference, in stride, during a nuanced discussion of genetic disease. So congrats.

I learned A LOT. About genetics and genomics and how genes translate into traits or behaviors, which as it turns out is not clear and straightforward. That’s probably the crucial point of the second half of the book.

He’s relatable and funny. I assume this is rare among geneticists who can write well. So we’re probably lucky he’s around. And British wit is delicious to me, a regular American.

I also learned a lot that I don’t think I could have easily learned elsewhere. Rutherford dives into common conceptions of behavioral connections to genes, and he dispels superficial explanations that the layperson might only ever hear. His explanation of “heritability” and GWAS studies is essential to read if you want to understand how much our dna actually explains the traits and behaviors it may be linked to. If nothing else, read that section.

Best of all, he doesn’t sneak any political ideology into the book. Allegiance is only to the scientific method, the importance of which he beneficently hits you over the head with throughout the book. He’s a true scientist, which is really refreshing to see these days.

Just read it

This was a fascinating book and a really easy read. You don’t have to know anything about biology/genes or science (in general) going in. The author is great at getting the information across, without being condescending or making you feel like you should already understand certain aspects of the topic. It’s seems like, because he knows it’s a complex topic, he can break it down to explain it...but he doesn’t “dumb it down” so much that you feel like you’re being talked down to. I really thoroughly enjoyed this book and plan on getting his other book(s)...

Adam Rutherford's book, A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived, is a wonderful dive into the world of genetics and human history. This book is split into two parts: How We Came To Be and Who We Are Now. There is also a thoughtful foreword by Siddartha Mukherjee, author of The Emperor of All Maladies and an epilogue by the author. I particularly enjoyed the first section of the book that focused on the spread of genes through "horny and mobile" early human species. I learned a lot about my early ancestors and was surprised to read how much DNA I share with Neanderthals. Personally, I enjoyed Rutherford’s analysis and trip through human history, however, I find myself less driven to get my genome sequenced than I was before reading this book. This is primarily due to one of the book’s main claim’s that while we “crave” “narrative satisfaction…genetics rarely delivers” on this desire [155]. There is too much historical context and too rigid social binaries that influence an individual’s identity for genomics to have a real niche or to be incorporated into how we view ourselves. Another reason I will not be getting my genome sequenced yet is, so much of the information harvested from these studies is contextual. Even Rutherford admits “context is essential,” in understanding the results given to you by these companies [253]. This “context” is how we incorporate this new information into our understanding of ourselves. With an ever-shifting landscape of context around us, it is hard to understand why examining the data today, compared to a decade from now, will enhance our own identity. Our society is established in a way that relies on binaries and barriers between individuals to maintain balance. Rutherford did not convince me we can overcome these barriers yet. I am hopeful that when these barriers are surmounted there will be a place for the idea of fluid human history and everyone will be excited to examine their own unique profile of evolution. Finally, I really hoped Rutherford would have been able to incorporate more diversity into his historical account of gene flow. As someone of mixed race, I found myself hearing a lot more about one side of my family than the other.

Who would have thought that a book about genetics could be funny, entertaining, and enlightening ? Adam Rutherford has a great sense of humor (he obviously inherited the funny gene...read the book and this makes sense!). While occasionally too technical for the average lay reader, he makes genetics understandable. You'll learn far more about red hair than you care to, but brushing through that material will lead you to great insights...I learned I was related to Charlemagne, Alexander the Great, Alfred the Great, and many other "Greats" of history...and so are you. We owe a debt of gratitude to the extended Darwin family in understanding who we as humans are and how we became what we are. Rutherford exposes another side of Charles Darwin's family in Francis Galton, the brilliant scientist who wandered off into the nutty and dangerous concept of eugenics (see the Nazis). Rutherford's not always correct in his comments such as when he praises the LA Lakers ("they would produce teams as good as the LA Lakers!") Basketball fans will recognize that he should have praised the Golden State Warriors as the Lakers are mediocre at best. But we can forgive him as he's a Brit and is probably a soccer (football) or God forbid, a cricket fan.

His deconstruction of creationism is wonderful..."Most Christians I know also think Darwinian evolution is the best description of how things are the way they are. Nevertheless, creationism does exist as a fringe, yet vocal, branch of Christianity, frothing with risible fallacies. There is one point worth addressing in the impotent arsenal of zombie arguments presented by creationist dolts that has some relevance here. They claim endlessly that there are no transitional fossils, that there are no examples of one species changing into another, that a transitional eye is of zero use, our vision is perfect as it is, and could not have come to be in incremental stages. There are none so blind as those who will not see. In fact, the fossil record is replete with transitional forms. Any particular characteristic that one chooses to name has varied forms embedded in stone."

I've read many books on genetics and have written several novels revolving around genetics (published in the UK and US). Rutherford's is far and away the best.

OK, here are a couple of things you need to know.

1. If you believe that the earth is 7000 years old and that God gave you a right to fire guns at anyone you like, this is not the book for you. Why would you even pick up a book on Genes that link us to all living things, back through 4 billion years, and where we have a tenth of the number of genes of a tree.

2.And yet..Mr Rutherford is taking on the characteristics of the handful of other UK science experts. They review each others books, include the right number of jokes to keep us interested and ...are getting increasingly sloppy at putting out the science updates we need.

For a start, did this originate as a series of lectures? There is not a single chapter which does not refer you to other chapters at least three times. The book does not seem to move in a logical order at all just wanders from anecdote to anecdote. Also uses a few too many examples of linguistic construction to help. All very disappointing to those of us who would have likes a sensible update on genetic science after 2000.

Sorry - wanted to like the book. Maybe I need to go back to believing in Noah's Ark.

I’ve been reading “A Brief History Of Everyone Who Ever Lived” the human story retold through our genes. This is the clearest most accessible explanation of genetic genealogy I’ve ever read. Filled with stories of human migration, explanation of diversity within populations, examinations of specific groups and their genetic lineage. Best of all for those of us whose brains explode from trying to grasp SNP’s, MRCA, STR’s from WAMH’s a clear explanation of the science of genetics. Written by Adam Rutherford, a must read.

The title of the book will attract the buyer. But the book disappoints. Don't buy it! Random and repetitive in many parts. And the grammar! Where was the editor? There are many dozens of times when the author uses the objective pronouns when the subjective is called for -- very distracting. One example on page 45 second paragraph: "The 2006 analysis revealed that they had exactly the type of FOXP2 gene as us......There's only two changes...." "as us" vs "as we" is a mistake constantly repeated; "There's" vs There are. Don't we know basic subject verb agreement? The para is also awkwardly constructed in other parts.

Look at pgs 139-140: "the patterns of migration is complex..." (not "are") There is a page and a half of one unbroken paragraph. "The Greenland Inuit have versions.....that look like they have (*should be had*) been positively selected....18,000 years ago." "...where diet and lifestyle is (*should be are*) obviously different..." The legacy of 500 years have (*should be has*).....etc etc etc Dozens and dozens of such errors throughout.

Pg 186, the artful 'sentence' to begin a para: "And so it was him" would not pass middle school composition; next page we see it again: "...for royalty says this was him." Good grief!

I want my money back! This is editorial malpractice!

This book may be a bit too in-depth for some readers, but I really enjoyed it. The author does a good job of describing the current state of the art of genealogy and how it all links together with other sciences like medicine and anthropology.

The book covers a fascinating and important topic. Unfortunately, it is very poorly written. The author looses himself in non-sequiturs and, along the way, becomes incoherent. Pick up a copy and read a few pages. For example the one on 'Blue-eyed blondes' or the one on 'The red are coming' and, after finishing the 3-4 pages ask yourself if you now know where blue-eyed blondes or red-haired people come from. There are interesting facts once in a while. For example, the first section in chapter 3 on ancestry is interesting. But unfortunately even that section gets bogged down in confusion because a secondary point gets repeated at length several times. Again, the book covers an interesting topic but it is poorly written and edited.

I have every book published about DNA in the past decade. This one seems to be written by someone who knows nothing about DTC DNA tests. In the second half of the book he goes off the rails. I don't want any of what this author is smoking!

I downloaded a sample of this book ... but got as far as the Introduction and was completely turned off by his reference to Jesus Christ and the New Testament. He's comparing apples and oranges. Can I trust his science?

Clara y directa descripción y exposición de los avances en genomica humana y sus aportes y limitaciones para comprender nuestra historia como seres vivos y otras utilidades, con ejemplos amenos de aplicación y una escritura que involucra al lector.

This is a first rate book on a new, fast-moving and complex subject. Adam Rutherford is a geneticist but also an excellent writer, clear, interesting, and amusing. Included in his book is the following: State of the art knowledge about ancient Homo sapiens migrations and about our species’ interbreeding with other human species; what genetics has to say about historic plagues; the vexed nature of relations between geneticists and Native Americans; the surprising age of the most recent common ancestor of everyone alive (3,600 years); the genetic similarity of all members of Homo sapiens; the story of Richard III’s corpse; inbreeding in European Royal Families; what genetics has to say about race (it is a largely meaningless concept); the significance of the Human Genome Project; the extraordinary complexity of DNA and its workings; the limitations of Mendeleev’s concept of discrete genes and the difficulties in determining heritability; and how epigenetics affects gene expression.
As can be seen from the selection of topics that I have listed above, Dr. Rutherford does not stick strictly to the title of his book. It is more in the nature of a discussion of recent discoveries in human genetics. And one that is well worth reading.
There are, I found, reasonable questions that the book raises but does not answer. One is of sample size. Dr. Rutherford praises two studies highly, one concerned with the DNA of Britain and the other with the genetic foundations of Europe. The first study is based on whole genome DNA from 2039 selected, living people. The other involves nine people buried over a period of 3,000 thousand years. It seems to me that some justification is required to draw general conclusions about Britain’s genetic history or that of Europe from such small samples (small compared to the populations concerned). A second question arises from the surprisingly recent date for the most recent living ancestor of all living humans. Dr. Rutherford does give some qualitative explanations but I would have liked a simplified calculation showing that the number is of the right order of magnitude. Finally, in my wish list, the early work on population genetics (up to about ten years ago) was based on MtDNA and Y-chromosome (the maternal and paternal ancestral lines). At that time those methodologies appeared to provide information that has not yet been extracted from the whole genome data. Yet the results from these earlier studies seem to be ignored. An explanation would have been helpful.
However, these omissions are of minor importance compared to what the book does offer and in my assessment it fully deserves a five star rating.

This may be the best science book I’ve read all year. Buy it for someone who is curious about the world. Read it yourself. Don’t pass it by. It’s special as far as I can tell.

As an aside: Rutherford is just cool. I don’t know a lot of geneticists, but I doubt many could casually pull out a Tupac reference, in stride, during a nuanced discussion of genetic disease. So congrats.

I learned A LOT. About genetics and genomics and how genes translate into traits or behaviors, which as it turns out is not clear and straightforward. That’s probably the crucial point of the second half of the book.

He’s relatable and funny. I assume this is rare among geneticists who can write well. So we’re probably lucky he’s around. And British wit is delicious to me, a regular American.

I also learned a lot that I don’t think I could have easily learned elsewhere. Rutherford dives into common conceptions of behavioral connections to genes, and he dispels superficial explanations that the layperson might only ever hear. His explanation of “heritability” and GWAS studies is essential to read if you want to understand how much our dna actually explains the traits and behaviors it may be linked to. If nothing else, read that section.

Best of all, he doesn’t sneak any political ideology into the book. Allegiance is only to the scientific method, the importance of which he beneficently hits you over the head with throughout the book. He’s a true scientist, which is really refreshing to see these days.

Just read it

I have always loved the study of human origins, and Adam lays out the basic foundational genetic information of human migrations in an easy to understand way. It is a must read for anyone interested in our ancestral origins.