Genetic Book of the Dead

From one of the world’s great science writers, a book that explores the deepest principles of evolutionary history.

In this groundbreaking new approach to the evolution of all life, Richard Dawkins shows how the body, behaviour, and genes of every living creature can be read as a book – an archive of the worlds of its ancestors. A perfectly camouflaged desert lizard has a desiccated landscape of sand and stones ‘painted’ on its back. Its skin can be read as a description of ancient deserts in which its ancestors survived – and, before that, of the worlds of its more remote ancestors: a genetic book of the dead.

But such descriptions are more than skin-deep. The fine chisels of Darwinian natural selection carve their way through the very warp and woof of the body, into every biochemical nook and corner, into every cell of every living creature. A zoologist of the future, presented with a hitherto-unknown animal, will be able to reconstruct the worlds that shaped its ancestors, to read its unique ‘book of the dead’.

The book is filled with fascinating examples of the power of Darwinian natural selection to build exquisite perfection, paradoxically accompanied by what look like gross blunders. Along the way, Dawkins dismantles influential criticisms of the ‘gene’s-eye-view’ of life. And, to end with a provocative sting in the tail, the author asks there is a sense in which all our ‘own’ genes can be seen as a gigantic colony of cooperating viruses?

From the author of The Selfish Gene and The Ancestor’s Tale comes a revolutionary, richly illustrated book that unlocks the door to an ancient past, seen through wholly new eyes.

This book is a summation of the ideas of the author who brought us \”memes\” and \”selfish genes\”. Richard Dawkins’s lucid prose will change the way you think about your evolutionary past. * David Haig, author of From Darwin to Derrida: Selfish Genes, Social Selves, and the Meanings of Life *
The deployment of the conceit of genes looking backward in time is clever and well done. A piece of vivid popular science. * Stephen Stearns, co-author of Evolution: An Introduction *
In this stunning book, Richard Dawkins explains how biologists can understand the evolutionary history of organisms by reading their genome and phenotype. These readouts reveal the past lives our ancestors lived while also predicting those of our descendants – well at least those that will be successful. Dawkins is the most accomplished science communicator of the past half century, and this book is a masterpiece of popular science writing. A truly wonderful and inspiring read. * Tim Coulson, Professor of Zoology, University of Oxford *
Writing with his customary clarity and verve, and with beautiful illustrations, Dawkins takes us on a journey from our ancestor’s environments to the way we are today. A great read. * Dr Susan Blackmore *
Another, and perhaps the most wide-ranging yet, of Richard Dawkins’s joyously exuberant expeditions into the staggering complexity of the living world – together with all the past worlds that have led up to it, and the mechanics that this has involved. A celebration – and written with all his wonderful grace and humour, informality, generosity, and personal involvement. * Michael Frayn *
The Genetic Book of the Dead takes us on an exhilarating odyssey to fathom the ingenious workings of natural selection from a gene’s-eye view… Darwin would be captivated. * Helena Cronin *
Richard Dawkins’s lovely new book is an old-fashioned miscellany of such zoological surprises… Dawkins’s true aim, the literary evocation of wonder at the vast and improbable grandeur of nature, is consistently achieved * The Telegraph *
[An] illuminating deep dive into genes, bodies and Darwinian natural selection. Highly readable and brilliantly illustrated * i news *
A joyful celebration… [Dawkins’] ability to tell the glorious tale of evolution in action remains unrivalled. * Financial Times *

Format: Hardback
Pages: 360
Imprint: Apollo
Publication date: 17/10/2024
Illustrator: Lenzova, Jana