Ann Druyan

To my mind, this is a five out of five star book. That despite considering its writing subpar. I found the writing poorly organized, overly verbose, and tortuous, except in the last several chapters.

Nevertheless, I would recommend the reader hang in there through all the verbosity and extraneous content (to me) in order to fully appreciate the last several chapters. They are the meat of the book that should be absorbed by all that have the open-mindedness and backbone to look at the reality of human existence.… (mere)

Carl Sagan and his wife Ann Druyan poetically present the humble beginnings of homo sapiens. They begin with the formulation of the universe and then with the many processes that went into the origination of our planet. The wonder that is DNA and genetics is then explained, showing how closely linked humans are to everything but just how intimately related we are to the great apes, mostly the chimpanzees.

The book is 80% about chimpanzee and other ape behavior and how they relate to us. I found it fascinating how many of our social behaviors are nearly identical with the apes. They function as a family unit. Mothers breastfeed their young and the young learn by seeing what the elders do. Apes groom each other and we like to give massages or cuddle with our loved ones. Chimps like Lucy displayed intelligence and the ability to think abstractedly. They have emotion and use facial expressions to communicate.

Apes are also highly sexual and can be really violent. Especially the Hamadrya baboon. Where the male chimps loosely guard their females when they are not ovulating, the male baboon treats the females like private property and will violently discipline them if they stray to another male. Apes will go patrolling in groups and are masters of stealth and strategy. The military branches of the world can take a page out of the chimp's playbook.

I found it all to be engrossing and enlightening. Carl and Ann shed a sliver of light on the shadows of our ancestors and bring them to the forefront for us to appreciate. We can learn so much about our past if we can continue to study our great antecedents.… (mere)