A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived

Critics Review

• I very much enjoyed and admired . . . A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived

  OBSERVER Books of the Year 2016

• An effervescent work, brimming with tales and confounding ideas carried in the “epic poem in our cells”. The myriad storylines will leave you swooning . . . Rutherford, a trained geneticist, is an enthusiastic guide

  GUARDIAN

• A thoroughly entertaining history of Homo sapiens and its DNA in a manner that displays popular science writing at its best

  OBSERVER

• A brilliant, authoritative, surprising, captivating introduction to human genetics. If you know little about the human story, you will be spellbound. If you know a lot about the human story, you’ll be spellbound. It’s that good

  Brian Cox

• Adam Rutherford’s book is well-written, stimulating and entertaining. What’s more important, he consistently gets it right

  Richard Dawkins

• If you are ethnically British, one thing is certain: your ancestors definitely had sex with Neanderthals. On the other hand, they probably didn’t have sex with Vikings, who, it turns out, did a fair bit more pillaging than raping. And, depending on the flakiness of your earwax, it is just conceivable that your relatives’ unattractiveness to hairy and horned invaders was related to their body odour. DNA is fragile, confusing and contains a lot of pointless data. But unlike other accounts of human history it doesn’t lie. Adam Rutherford’s soaring book is an exposition of what this new science really tells us about who we are

  THE TIMES

• One of the most extraordinary things about this book is its sheer breadth. Rutherford, a writer and geneticist, weaves from our genes a fascinating tapestry of human history from its most primitive origins to its sophisticated present, and beyond … The writing is concise and often funny, and Rutherford never takes himself or his subject too seriously … It is one of those rare books that you’ll finish thinking you haven’t wasted a single second

  INDEPENDENT

• Magisterial, informative and delightful

  Peter Frankopan

• Rutherford takes off on an extraordinary adventure, following the wandering trail of DNA across the globe and back in time. And on the way, he reveals what DNA can – and can’t – tell us about ourselves, our history and our deep evolutionary heritage. From the Neanderthals to the Vikings, from the Queen of Sheba to Richard III, Rutherford goes in search of our ancestors, tracing the genetic clues deep into the past . . . Wide-ranging, witty, full of surprises and studded with sparkling insights – Rutherford uncovers the epic history of the human species, written in DNA

  Alice Roberts

• A captivating delight. With witty, authoritative and profound prose, Adam Rutherford tackles the biggest of issues – where we came from, and what makes us who we are. He does more than any author to cut through the confusion around genetics, and to reveal what modern genetics has to say about our identity, history and future

  Ed Yong

• Genetics is opening up the past as never before – Adam Rutherford puts the genes in genealogy brilliantly

  Matt Ridley

• Fifteen years ago, the first sequence and analysis of the human genome was published. A monumental surge in genetics followed. Science writer and broadcaster Adam Rutherford rides that tide and traces its effects, first focusing on how genetics has enriched and in some cases upset our understanding of human evolution, then examining the revelations of recent findings, such as deep flaws in the concept of race . . . Rutherford unpeels the science with elegance

  NATURE

• I learned gobs, pondered more, and re-read much. Excellent book!

  Commander Chris Hadfield

• Exemplary “popular” science … absorbing, immensely informative and beautifully written

  Henry Marsh

• Wonderfully readable . . . Rutherford has an easy way of describing complex processes, coupled with a love of a telling number or statistic

  WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE magazine

• Science books can sometimes be rather stuffy or prissy – but no one can accuse Adam Rutherford of this. In his exploration of “the stories in our genes” that word stories is foremost – and Rutherford proves himself time and again to be an accomplished storyteller . . . a magnificent achievement, a big, friendly bear of a book that pummels the reader with delightful stories and no doubt would buy you a drink if it could

  POPSCIENCEBOOKS

• A revelatory and important exploration into the ties that bind us – all seven billion of us – together. I really was enthralled

  author of THE YEAR OF THE RUNAWAYS

• Rutherford is an engaging and accessible narrator, able to deploy his expertise as a torch with which to illuminate a complicated subject. His is also often very funny, alive to the absurd lengths to which humans are willing to go in order to disbelieve facts . . . This is, inevitably, a singularly gripping yarn. Rutherford superbly narrates not merely our species’ progress from our original African heartland, but also the discoveries which have allowed us to map that journey retrospectively. He has a keen eye for the arresting factoid that underpins the broader concept . . . A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived is not merely informative but wise

  NEW HUMANIST

• This scintillating tour of the latest genetic discoveries blurs the boundaries between science and history, encompassing Neanderthal discoveries, microbiology, the possible extinction of redheads, dead royals, race relations, criminology, evolution and eugenics. Our genomes, says writer and broadcaster Rutherford winningly, should be read less like instruction manuals, and more like epic poems

  THE BOOKSELLER

• [A] captivating introduction to human genetics

  DAILY MAIL

• This is a fantastically clear and well-argued book about human DNA …There are lots of fascinating things about human evolution here, and Rutherford has a gift for explanation. Whatever your level of prior knowledge, this will interest you.

  EVENING STANDARD

• This is a fantastically clear and well-argued book about human DNA. There are lots of fascinating things about human evolution here, and Rutherford has a gift for explanation

  INDEPENDENT i paper

• Rutherford aims at no less than a retelling of human history … He proves himself a commendable historian – one who is determined to illuminate the commonality of Homo sapiens

  THE GUARDIAN

• A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived is nothing less than a tour de force – a heady amalgam of science, history, a little bit of anthropology and plenty of nuanced, captivating storytelling. While Rutherford, a geneticist, science writer and broadcaster, makes both his ambition and cheekiness clear in the title, he somehow manages to deliver on its great promise … wise, funny, and occasionally cranky

  NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

• This enjoyable book has a great deal to say about our genetic code – or, more precisely, about how our knowledge of genetics is misused and misconstrued … [Rutherford] proves an enthusiastic guide and a good story-teller

  WALL STREET JOURNAL