Human diversity: the factors behind it and how it emerged in the course of time. How we change through succeeding generations. Genetics and molecular biology, archaeology, anthropology and linguistics come together to address the question of where we came from and how we became what we are.
A study on the roots of racism and the refusal of “the other”. “Weness”, the sense of strength, safety and superiority provided by the group we identify with, and some of its dire consequences in XXth century history.
Born as a catalogue to the exhibit Homo sapiens, La grande storia della diversità umana, held in Rome in 2011, the book traces the history of humankind, as reconstructed through the disciplines that investigate our past. The narration is supported by the exhibit’s displays.
Pagina esposizione
How a clever, arrogant human species came to colonize the planet, through a variety of biological and cultural adaptations, leading to waves of radiation as a consequence of demographic success, and to the differentiation of Homo sapiens into many thousand peoples across the continents. From molecules to customs.
Today is the first day of the rest of our lives, goes an old saying, and the search for happiness proceeds by trial and error, very much as science itself does. A search for what makes us happy, looking at human history and our changing customs, and at the basic drives of our biological make.up. Ethical choices surrounding birth, reproduction, and death, in the light of the quest for happiness.
A book for the young, explaining the fundamental factors of both biological and cultural evolution, and showing their display through human history. The matter of racism and intolerance is addressed, detailing its causes, its symptoms and emergence in the course of time, and its remedies.