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meaganmart's review
4.0
I had to read this book for an Anthropology class that I'm taking, but honestly, I loved it. I thought it was fascinating to read about Webster taking a modern day journey through the places that his genetic ancestors has lived hundreds of thousands of years ago. I like the perspective that the book gives about the interrelatedness of everyone on the planet, how we are so closely related to everyone else around us when you stop to think about it. And, it also definitely made me want to take part in the National Geographic project that tells you the migration path of your genetic ancestors. Maybe one day I'll write my own book about finding my genetic homeland!
abdelrahmanm93's review
2.0
I do appreciate the author's object of writing down his experience as he traveled across countries and chose to interact firsthand with cultures very different from his. However, his attempt at doing this cannot strike anyone but as sheerly disappointing. The book is fraught with scores of naive, high school-level observations and analyses of history and human cultures. His impetuousness that prompted him to write a lousy book like this has exposed how pretentious and unknowledgeable a supposedly anthropologist he is. For instance, he calls Muslims "Islamic People." This gaffe can only be made by tourist-minded smarties. If he decided to write a 300-paper-long book, he should have done some extra research or at least asked the locals in Lebanon how they refer to themselves in "English."
cyndin's review
3.0
More travelogue than history or genealogy. Interesting enough but it doesn't do a good job tying together the links among the different stops on his journey. I wanted more genealogical science. The author mentions markers but doesn't give enough context for them. I can't compare them to my own DNA tests. At least that could have been in an appendix.
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