Close Encounters with Humankind

US hardcover, 1st edition.

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

I saw this book in a list of audio books, and always wanting to learn more about science, evolution, and human origins. I finished it on 2020-10-02 and loved it.

Status

I don't own this book, but I listened to the audio book read by Emily Woo Zeller.

Review

Good

• Each chapter is filled with interesting and useful information. The chapter on cannibalism dispels a lot of 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

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

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  Audio book. Not great either.

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