Transcendence: How Humans Evolved Through Fire, Language, Beauty, and Time

Gaia Vince

Jan 2020 · RB Media · Narrated by Gaia Vince

Audiobook

11 hr 27 min

Unabridged

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About this audiobook

How four tools enabled humanity to control its destiny What enabled us to go from simple stone tools to smartphones? How did bands of hunter-gatherers evolve into multinational empires? Readers of Sapiens will say a cognitive revolution -- a dramatic evolutionary change that altered our brains, turning primitive humans into modern ones -- caused a cultural explosion. In Transcendence, Gaia Vince argues instead that modern humans are the product of a nuanced coevolution of our genes, environment, and culture that goes back into deep time. She explains how, through four key elements -- fire, language, beauty, and time -- our species diverged from the evolutionary path of all other animals, unleashing a compounding process that launched us into the Space Age and beyond. Provocative and poetic, Transcendence shows how a primate took dominion over nature and turned itself into something marvelous.

About the author

Gaia Vince is the author of Adventures in the Anthropocene: A Journey to the Heart of the Planet we Made, which won the 2015 Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books.

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