James Shreeve Bücher

Challenges the belief that the Neandertal was the first true human species, revealing the existence of humans fifty thousand years earlier, and considering why the Neandertal species died out.

The long-awaited story of the science, business, politics, and intrigue behind the fierce competition to map the human genome unfolds dramatically. On May 10, 1998, biologist Craig Venter announced the formation of a private company aimed at unraveling the complete genetic code of human life within three years—seven years ahead of the U.S. government's Human Genome Project. Venter's ambition was not only to accelerate biomedical research and save lives but also to achieve fame and fortune. He named his company Celera, meaning "speed," and gathered a small team of scientists in Rockville, Maryland, to embark on this groundbreaking mission. Simultaneously, the government program, led by Francis Collins of the National Human Genome Research Institute, rallied a unified effort to outpace Venter. This rivalry set the stage for a thrilling and significant drama in scientific history. The narrative captures the race for the most coveted prize in biology, with exclusive insights into Venter’s operation. It also explores how one man's ambition sparked a scientific Camelot, where the interests of pure science and commercial profit appeared to align—only to reveal the national repercussions when that vision faltered.

Don Johanson discovered Lucy, the most famous and one of the most complete of hominid remains, in 1974. His controversial interpretation of the remains as representing an ancestor to all subsequent hominid species, including our own, and his bestselling book "Lucy - the Beginnings of Humankind" established him as the most famous living palaeontologist, his one rival being Richard Leakey, whose views of human evolution remain entirely opposed to Johanson's. In this book, Johanson weaves together the story of his return to Africa in 1986, and the discovery of another extraordinary hominid specimen, with a history of the search for human origins and of his bitter disagreements with Leakey.