Close Encounters with Humankind

Close Encounters with Humankind

Hardcover - USA - 1st edition.

Author Sang-Hee Lee, Shin-Young Yoon Published 2018-02-20 Type Non-fiction Genre Educational Themes Anthropology, Biology, Evolution, Paleoanthropology, Science Age Group Adult

Close Encounters with Humankind: A Paleoanthropologist Investigates Our Evolving Species is a popular science book about anthropology written by Sang-Hee Lee, with Shin-Young Yoon, and published on 2018-02-20. The book is a series of essays about the origins of humans, how we evolved, the various puzzles that still confound scientists, and how our culture has changed over hundreds of thousands of years.

Personal

Own?	No.
Read?	Audiobook read by Emily Woo Zeller.
Finished	2020-10-02.

I saw this book in a list of audio books, and always wanting to learn more about science, evolution, and human origins.

Review

Overall:

Good

• Each chapter is filled with interesting and useful information. The chapter on cannibalism dispels a lot of racist myths about the practice, the chapter on the first humans includes some of the more recent discoveries for potential candidates, the chapter on origin of race and what it means from a biological sense is very eye-opening, etc.
• The writing style is enjoyable, and the format — essays about a specific topic, rather than a list of facts or the entire history of the field — was easily digestible.

Bad

• Some of the comments the author makes about things outside of her area of expertise didn't sound right to me. I didn't write them down as I listened to the audio book, so I don't remember them exactly, but there were at least two.

Ugly

• Nothing.

Media

• 

  US hardcover, 1st edition - Basically clip art. Boring.

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  Audio book. Not great either.

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