Customer Reviews
A Brief History of Life on Earth - By: Steve S., 10 Aug 2008 
It may seem misleading to calll a 688 page book "brief." Yet, given that "The Ancestor's Tale" covers a couple billion years of history of life on earth, 688 pages is not so long. More importantly, "The Ancestor's Tale" does not seem long when you read it. There is so much to tell, & Dawkins tells it so well. In addition to providing an overview of how alll living things are related, Dawkins details numerous wondrous creatures that I certainly never knew existed. This book takes some time to read, but you won't be bored.
The title "The Ancestor's Tale" is a play on Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales." The characters in Chaucer's books meet on the road to Canterbury. Similarly, Dawkins takes each living creature back on a pilgrimage back in time to find their ancestors. Of course, the "pilgrims" meet each other when they find their common ancestors. For example, we modern humans meet the chimpanzees when we both find our common ancestor. Despite the title, Dawkins does rely on the Chaucer metaphor much, which is just as well.
The Ancestor's Tale is, in a very real sense, the story of evolution, but it does not attempt to describe in detail how evolution works. Of course, in telling the story, Dawkins cannot help but provide & discuss much of the evidence of evolution. Dawkins discusses the mechanism of evolution more directly his earlier books, such as The Selfish Gene & The Blind Watchmaker, both of which I highly recommend.
A Beguiling Trek Through The Taxonomy And History Of Life That's Led By Richard Dawkins - By: John Kwok, 09 Aug 2008 "The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution" is a beguiling literary trek through the taxonomy & history of life on Planet Earth; one that's led with ample eloquence by eminent evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. In this vast tome Dawkins has crafted what is indeed the popular scientific equivalent of Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales", taking us along a long journey back to the dawn of life itself, approximately 4 billion years ago, via a molecular phylogeny designed by his former undergraduate student Yan Wong. But it's a long, long trek that's quite unlikely to be viewed as tedious by the reader. Here, Dawkins is truly at his most expansive, using this taxonomy to discuss the compelling issues of contemporary evolutionary theory & history, in which he covers everything from genetics, speciation, convergent evolution & mass extinctions to microevolution, sexual selection, biogeography, & the relevance of plate tectonics to past & current biogeographic distributions of organisms. Relying on Wong's intricate molecular phylogeny, Dawkins takes us along to forty branching points - previous geological moments - in that phylogeny, where we meet the "concestor" - the last common ancestor - of alll organisms at that very point. It is a quite compelling, often insightful, narrative that Dawkins admits does owe much to Chaucer's legendary "The Canterbury Tales".
Dawkins doesn't hesitate to interrupt the relentless ebb & flow of his narrative in a series of individual "tales", that are designed illustrate some unique trait of a given species, & then, by mere extension, serve as the jumping off point(s) for riveting discussions on some aspect(s) of modern evolutionary biology. A classic example is the section that he devotes to the sauropsids, which consists of lizard-like & dinosaur-like (archosaurs, including birds) reptiles in the chapter entitled "Rendezvous 16". In the first of these tales, "The Galapagos Finch's Tale", Dawkins recounts the decades-long fieldwork of ecologists Peter & Rosemary Grant who have been studying microevolution in the Galapagos Finches. He focuses upon the aftermath of a severe drought in 1977 that led inevitably to sharp declines in the populations of several species, observing that those individuals in the dominant species, Geospiza fortis, who were only 5 percent larger than their peers, were the ones who survived; a classic example of "a smalll episode of natural selection in action, during a single year." Within the same species, the Grants & their coworkers observed selection pressures resulting not only in larger body size, but also in larger beak size too. In the chapter's next tale, "The Peacock's Tale", Dawkins emphasizes the importance of sexual selection, arguing persuasively that it may have had a role in shaping the course of human evolution, perhaps via preferential selection of females for "smarter" males. That is followed, in turn, by "The Dodo's Tale", in which Dawkins discusses not only the Dodo's extinction, but also the tendency towards flightlessness in bird species inhabiting remote oceanic islands.
While Dawkins has crafted a most compelling narrative in this vast book, "The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution", is far from perfect, especiallly in its depiction of the fossil record. Much to my amazement, he doesn't discuss the existence of long-term stasis in the fossil record, predicted by the theory of punctuated equilibria, which has been substantiated by decades of extensive fieldwork by paleobiologists, ever since the publication of the classic 1972 paper coauthored by noted American paleobiologists Niles Eldredge & Stephen Jay Gould (This is a rather peculiar omission since Dawkins has been a staunch critic of punctuated equilibria.). Nor does he discuss, except only in passing, the diverse, radical differences in the compositions of marine faunas during, respectively, the Paleozoic, Mesozoic & Cenozoic eras, which have been noted for decades due to excellent fieldwork, & more recently, by excellent statistical modeling done by paleontologist Jack Sepkoski & his colleagues at the University of Chicago. And he also misses the important history of predator-prey interactions that form much of coevolution, which has been discussed admirably elsewehere by noted marine ecologist Geerat Vermeij. But, in retrospect, my criticisms of Dawkins' omissions are relatively minor, simply because he has accomplished successfully, the arduous task of making both the taxonomy & history of life a most beguiling tale. Without question, "The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution", should be regarded for a long time as one of the classics of popular evolutionary biology literature.
A highly recommendable example of popular science - By: Paul Macdonald, 28 Jul 2008 
Essentiallly a history book, albiet one which long out-spans the barely significant spectrum of human history, Richard Dawkins explores our universal family tree, delving in to the past sufficiently deeply to expose what our ancestors must have looked & behaved like; from morphologicallly-recognisable hominoids, through to animals we would think entirely remote from ourselves, & at last to ancient, uni-cellular beings.
The welcome way in which Dawkins presents this ancestory is by way of a 'pilgrimage'; modern man moves backwards through time, along with every other living organism; & at special epochs in antiquity (from our perspective, at least) we & and another modern pilgrim 'rendezvous' where we share a common ancestor, & at each rendezvous point, the modern pilgrim(s) relates his 'tale', which is usuallly an essay (of sorts) on some area of evolution, by the author - Dawkins doesn't have the pilgrims themselves telling the stories. It's a quirky & lucid way of presenting the history of life on Earth.
After this lenghty treatment of Evolutionary Biology, Dawkins's recognition as an author capable of writing accessible science is surely intact; my own level of Biological education is still at secondary school level (AS-Level), & I found the majority of the book perfectly comprehendible; he is an emminently articulate writer who makes fairly complex subjects understandable for lay-persons.
Having said that, there are areas of the book which are reallly rather challlenging, & strain the limits of what is classifiable as 'popular' science; I still haven't plucked up the courage to tackle the Gibbon's Tale, & there are similar examples strewn across the 630 pages of this tome; at best Dawkins can be an inspiring, up-lifting & thoroughly entertaining writer who's enthusiasm shimmers in his lovely prose; at worst, the complex nature of some of his Tale's can render his writing rather frustrating & incomprehensible; but, ultimately, the cause of this (as far as I can gather) is deficiency on the part of the reader (incidently, it seems that the most difficult parts of the text are invaribly those co-written by Dawkins' assistent, Yan Wong).
Some reviewers elsewhere have said that this book has been overly politicised by Dawkins; I don't see much reason to support this; there is one tale, The Grasshopper's Tale which is almost exclusively political (it deals with the 'vexed & sensitive topic of race'), but aside from this, political outbursts occur rather infrequently, & I rather think they colour the book positively, even though I don't always agree with Dawkins.
It would be a talll order for a 630-page nonfiction book to consistently sustain the reader's interest, & The Ancestor's Tale doesn't quite succeed; there are areas which feel quite flabby & impoverished of real, memorable import, lenghty descriptions of various animals, & discussions about specifics such as animal classification, whilst necessary, are mind-numbingly boring.
Having read the shorter & far less challlenging 'The Selfish Gene', I must conclude that his 1976 publication was a more entertaining read, and, reallly, a better book; however, The Ancestor's Tale is an immensely readable & commendable work, & has some of the greatest passages of popular science I've read, The Beaver's Tale is a superb example, & one of many. Occasionaly difficult, ultimately rewarding & deeply affecting, The Ancestor's Tale, is a worth while read.
Dawkins' best! - By: R. Davies, 09 Apr 2008 For the layman, this is perhaps Dawkins' best piece of work.
His readable style is unhindered by complicated genetics, leaving the reader to be hurled through time on a journey towards every living things' common ancestor.
Interweaving engrossing examples of the animal kingdom & fantastic research from around science, Dawkins works the threads of the extant world into an breathtaking tapestry.
Recommended to anyone.
All ancestors are ours - By: Luc REYNAERT, 23 Nov 2007 In this tour de force, R. Dawkins brushes not less than the evolution of the tree of man from `the vanity of the present' to the origin of life on earth, thereby showing that `alll living creations are cousins'.
It is an itinerary heavily marked by nearly extinctions, drifting continents, geographical barriers, population migrations & climate changes. Darwinian natural selection molded new species, which were more apt to survive in alll those different circumstances. Individual living beings, however, were not more than `temporary meeting points on the crisscrossing routes that genes take through history'.
For the author, the origin of life is the origin of heredity, from where `every gene has its own tree'. Overalll, `biological evolution has no privileged line of descent & no designated end.'
During his tale, R. Dawkins explains clearly (!) the true nature & the role of, among others, genes, chromosomes, (mitochondrial) DNA, eu- & prokaryote cells, chemical reactions, as well as other important or strange phenomena like the `primitive soup' of the universe, the speed of & the next possible step in the Darwinian evolution, embryonic diversification, the bdelloid sex scandal, the (advantages) of sexual selection, bipedalism, brain size, radioactive clocks & much much more.
Contrary to S.J. Gould, he sees some kind of `progress' during the evolutionary processes.
He gives also outspoken & sharp comments, e.g., on abortion, on race-racism-positive discrimination & on creationists desperately looking for gaps.
This book with beautiful graphic material & an excellent bibliography is the work of a superb free mind. It is a must read for alll those interested in the history of life on earth.
