Steve Jones, Emeritus Professor of Human Genetics UCL, author of Almost Like a Whale This book goes from the Big Bang to the Hundred Thousand Genome Project to make a convincing case that Homo sapiens has become a super-organism. Uta Frith, Emeritus Professor of Cognitive Development UCL Read moreĪn imaginative and inspiring adventure into the origins and evolution of what we hold most dear: our human culture. Drawing on leading-edge advances in population genetics, archaeology, palaeontology and neuroscience, Transcendence compels us to reimagine ourselves, and shows us to be on the brink of something grander - and potentially more destructive. Vince shows how four evolutionary drivers - Fire, Language, Beauty and Time - are further transforming our species into a transcendent superorganism: a hyper-cooperative mass of humanity that she calls Homo omnis. It is our collective culture, rather than our individual intelligence, that makes humans unique. Gaia Vince argues that our unique ability to determine the course of our own destiny rests on a special relationship between our genes, environment and culture going back into deep time.

Our closest living relatives, the now-endangered chimpanzees, continue to live as they have for millions of years. A TIMES BEST BOOK OF 2019: the astonishing story of how culture enabled us to become the most successful species on Earth

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