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

A 2017 National Book Critics Circle Award finalist

In our unique genomes, every one of us carries the story of our species—births, deaths, disease, war, famine, migration, and a lot of sex. But those stories have always been locked away—until now. Who are our ancestors? Where did they come from? Geneticists have suddenly become historians, and the hard evidence in our DNA has blown the lid off what we thought we knew. Acclaimed science writer Adam Rutherford explains exactly how genomics is completely rewriting the human story—from 100,000 years ago to the present.

Adam Rutherford is a science writer and broadcaster. He studied genetics at University College London, and during his PhD on the developing eye, he was part of a team that identified the first genetic cause of a form of childhood blindness. He has written and presented many award-winning series and programs for the BBC, including the flagship weekly Radio 4 program Inside Science, The Cell for BBC Four, and Playing God (on the rise of synthetic biology) for the leading science series Horizon, as well as writing for the science pages of the Guardian. His first book, Creation, on the origin of life and synthetic biology, was published in 2013 to outstanding reviews and was short-listed for the Wellcome Trust Prize.

Siddhartha Mukherjee is the author of The Gene and the Pulitzer Prize–winning The Emperor of All Maladies. He is an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University and a cancer physician and researcher.