‘Beautifully written … Dawkins’s account cites a stunning array of biologists past and present. No other book gives such an impression of sheer intellectual vitality and pluralism among the past century’s evolutionary scientists. Virtually every page exemplifies a memorable insight into the strangeness and prodigality of nature, its culs-de-sac and its extraordinary leaps’ John Cornwell, Sunday Times ‘As a contribution to the history of ideas this book is well worthy of Britain’s top public intellectual. The arguments are as sharply honed as we have come to expect from Dawkins’ Matt Ridley, Guardian ‘One of the richest accounts of evolution ever written … the tales of the pilgrims dart around with a delightful unpredictability, propelled like a firecracker by Dawkins’s wonderful way with words. He is so good at explaining scientific issues that readers will learn painlessly about matters well outside the author’s field of evolutionary biology from maths to cosmology … we have no right to expect [another] magnum opus on the scale of The Ancestor’s Tale’ Clive Cookson, Financial Times ‘Dawkins is one of the outstanding scientific inventors of our time – an inventor of concepts, that is, rather than experiments or machines. Over the past 30 years he has established himself as a great explainer too, combining serious research with zestful popular writing … In 500 pages crammed with lucid prose and lovely pictures, it sketches the story of life on Earth since its origin four billion years ago. And it does it with punch … A book which tries, with much brilliance and some success, to treat our vaunted humanity as no more than a tiny episode in a vast drama, equivalent to a couple of seconds of madness at the end of a very long day’ Jonathan Ree, Evening Standard ‘The result is not just a wealth of ideas about how living things evolved, but a strong sense of the urgency and absorption with which science is done’ Marek Kohn, Independent ‘The Ancestor’s Tale is a pilgrimage. Dawkins’s subject here is the history of life … you never lose sight of the fact that it is our family tree we are discussing … No other book I have read has given me such a dizzyingly immediate sense of the vastness and strangeness of the changes brought about by evolution over the eons, or how intimately all life is bound together – far more intimately than we could have conceived a few years ago … the meticulous clarity of Dawkins’s prose and the absolute absence of fuzziness offer assurance that, given time and thought, the knottiest passages will yield’ Robert Hanks, Daily Telegraph ‘This pilgrimage, this “backwards history”, is a wonderfully informed enquiry into how we got to be here, as well as a reminder that, in spite of our arrogant belief in “man as evolution’s last word”, evolution does not end with us … The Ancestor’s Tale is just as satisfying: as intellectually stimulating as its predecessors, but also more generous, more warm-blooded (as it were). As always with Dawkins, the writing is beautiful: economical, vivid and, often, both elegant and witty’ John Burnside, Scotsman ‘A new chronicle of life, wonderfully illustrated, from this great evolutionist’ Economist ‘Should be given to all intelligent young persons starting out on their exploration of the world. It will excite their curiosity and awe and prove to them that the world is inexhaustible in its fascination’ Anthony Daniels, Sunday Telegraph ‘This is epic stuff indeed and Mr Dawkins carries it off with triumphant skill, never sacrificing the complexity of his argument to the voracious god of dumbing down’ Dan Colwell, Wall Street Journal ‘The Ancestor’s Tale achieves the almost impossible: it makes biology (not biochemistry, brain science, or bird-watching, but biology as a whole) interesting again’ Steve Jones, Lancet ‘Its central philosophy is well stated on the last page. Pilgrimage implies reverence, and such reverence should go to “the sublime grandeur of the real world”’ Crispin Tickell, Literary Review ‘The Ancestor’s Tale is an audacious book, a monumental work that takes us back in time to the origins of life on this planet’ Dick Ahlstrom, Irish Times ‘A well-written and superbly illustrated book on the ever-fascinating theme of the descent of man … this extraordinarily detailed, serious and engaging book’ George Walden, Daily Mail ‘Amazing and brilliant … [Dawkins is] the most temperate and invigorating of persuaders, one of the most cultured and humane … a work of immense erudition, engaging geniality and originality of conception and composition’ James Grieve, Canberra Times ‘To read The Ancestor’s Tale is to be amazed at the multiplicity and ingenuity that results … Dawkins’s capacity for clear explanation, assisted by excellent and often beautiful illustrations, is formidable’ Quentin de la Bédoyère, Catholic Herald ‘I believe I speak for most of us when I say that there’s not a huge demand to know more about protosomes, sauropsids and sea squirts. But when you realize that these are things we simply had to be in order to become human, they are rather more alluring, and in Dawkins’ clear, measured prose they become reliably and unexpectedly absorbing’ Bill Bryson, Daily Express Professor Richard Dawkins is a world-renowned evolutionary biologist and author. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and holds the Charles Simonyi Chair of Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. His first book, The Selfish Gene (1976), was an instant international bestseller, and has become an established classic work of modern evolutionary biology. The Blind Watchmaker (1986), too, has become world-famous. His other works for the general public have each been highly successful. By Richard Dawkins The Selfish Gene The Extended Phenotype The Blind Watchmaker River Out of Eden Climbing Mount Improbable Unweaving the Rainbow A Devil’s Chaplain The Ancestor’s Tale The God Delusion The Greatest Show on Earth THE ANCESTOR’S TALE A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Life Richard Dawkins with additional research by Yan Wong A WEIDENFELD & NICOLSON EBOOK First published in Great Britain in 2004 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson This ebook first published in 2010 by Orion Books Copyright © Richard Dawkins 2004 The right of Richard Dawkins to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: 978 0 2978 6541 4 The Orion Publishing Group Ltd Orion House 5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane London WC2H 9EA An Hachette UK Company www.orionbooks.co.uk John Maynard Smith (1920–2004) He saw a draft and graciously accepted the dedication, which now, sadly, must become In Memoriam ‘Never mind the lectures or the “workshops”; be blowed to the motor coach excursions to local beauty spots; forget your fancy visual aids and radio microphones; the only thing that really matters at a conference is that John Maynard Smith must be in residence and there must be a spacious, convivial bar. If he can’t manage the dates you have in mind, you must just reschedule the conference … He will charm and amuse the young research workers, listen to their stories, inspire them, rekindle enthusiasms that might be flagging, and send them back to their laboratories or their muddy fields, enlivened and invigorated, eager to try out the new ideas he has generously shared with them.’ It isn’t only conferences that will never be the same again.