Origins: How Earth's History Shaped Human History in Science and Inquiry

Feb 02, 2020 Charlene rated it it was amazing

Shelves: climate, biology, history, favorites, evolution, networks, constructs, mindgasms, geology, ecology

Brilliant!
THIS IS THE BOOK I THOUGHT SHOULD HAVE WON Goodreads Best Science Book 2019.
I would not recommend getting the Audible version because it does not come with a PDF. In order to truly appreciate this book, you need the PDF or to watch this lecture before you start the book:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nn-U3...

In this book Lewis Dartnell followed how the movement of tectonic plates determined where humans migrated, settled, and brought about agriculture and animal husbandry. Their mov ...more

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Jul 08, 2020 aPriL does feral sometimes rated it it was amazing

Shelves: twisted-me-peculiar, non-fiction, science, academic-notations, favorites

‘Origins’ by Lewis Darnell is an excellent general reader book of science describing how the changing geography of Earth for its past 4.5 billion years led to how the Human species developed and spread across the continents.

The short version:

Most of us know the continents move around the surface of the earth because of plate tectonics. In moving about, mountains were created, volcanoes erupted, wind and ocean currents changed. The earth’s path around the sun and the wobble of the earth produced ‘Origins’ by Lewis Darnell is an excellent general reader book of science describing how the changing geography of Earth for its past 4.5 billion years led to how the Human species developed and spread across the continents.

The short version:

Most of us know the continents move around the surface of the earth because of plate tectonics. In moving about, mountains were created, volcanoes erupted, wind and ocean currents changed. The earth’s path around the sun and the wobble of the earth produced alternating ice ages and extremely warm periods. The ocean became separated oceans which regular rise to cover continents or recede because of water freezing into vast glaciers. Once life started, the scientists think there were vast blooms of varied life forms which briefly lived on the earth and died off almost completely five times that we know of. Rocks weathered away making soils of varying ability to support flora, plants died and were compressed into coal or rotted releasing carbon dioxide, among other elements, into the air affecting atmospheric composition, microscopic critters died and were compressed into oil or rotted releasing some carbon dioxide, too. The tiny critters made oxygen, adding it to the atmosphere. Weather patterns changed so that continents changed from swamps and jungles to deserts to grasslands and back again.

Where land was kind to human life, we flourished. When the land changed, we moved away or died. Our bodies changed to suit the environment as it changed to survive the changes. Some continents ended up with an abundance of resources, others with a paucity. What resources and weather a continent had (flora, fauna, minerals, water, good or poor soil) affected what culture humans developed. The author makes the argument that how humans settled to extract resources has led to where people live and what party they vote for! For example, coal miners live where the coal deposits to be mined are, or were, thus a lot of Labour party voters are there in place to vote en masse. Wind and ocean currents directed how 15th-century explorers explored the earth by ships and where they landed and thus where colonialism occurred. Trade routes that cut through or were blocked by geographic features determined movement of resources. Those societies with access to trade routes grew their cultures with the availability of resources and those who had no or little access to trade developed cultures with fewer resources.

There is much more in the book and all of it’s fascinating. I have never thought about how the Earth’s surface characteristics have affected human societies and cultures, and our inventions and technology developments. The author goes into more detail and fills in my very truncated and summarized history. He describes the development of specific areas of the earth - such as Eurasia, North America, Africa, and the Mediterranean. Why was the north shore of the Mediterranean so amiable to the development of many cultures, while northern Africa only grew the advanced culture of ancient Egypt? Read the book! I wish the author could have given us more. The book is wonderful, gentle readers!

Included are extensive Notes, Bibliography and Index sections. There are very useful and explanatory maps. The author has synthesized a great deal of information into a general reader format without sacrificing any science facts. ...more

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Jun 10, 2020 Paul Perry rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2020, history, non-fiction, society, male-author, science, geology, british-author, geography

In Origins, Lewis Dartnell takes a similar approach to that of Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs, and Steel, using a long view to explain why human development progressed in the way it did. In this case, the billions-years process of geology.

Starting with the hypothesis that humans developed the way we did in East Africa due to the climate created by the Great Rift Valley - a drying out of the land leading to the forest being replaced by savanna, amongst other factors - through the forces that raised ...more

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Jun 17, 2020 Jim rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: science, 2non-fiction, 1audio, historical

This started out rather slow & repetitively for me, but it got a lot more interesting from chapter 4 on. I've read several other books that covered the first 3 chapters in even more detail & Dartnell made his points several times, so it really dragged. I quit for a while, but picked it back up & am glad I did. His common theme, the title of the book, was extremely interesting & he had great examples. He traced why skyscrapers are built where they & even tied voting blocks to formations from mill ...more

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