A review by marc129
Transcendence: How Humans Evolved Through Fire, Language, Beauty, and Time by Gaia Vince

2.0

This book is receiving both very positive as well as very negative comments and ratings. Although I tend towards the latter, I still have a lot of appreciation for the enormous amount of knowledge that Gaia Vince has incorporated into this, and for the way in which she has tried to organize it into a workable whole. In recent decades, more people have ventured into an attempt to present a coherent, historically based vision of humanity. Just think of Yuval Harari, David Christian, Stephen Pinker and so on. It takes special courage to do “the big take”.

Celebrated British science journalist Gaia Vince focuses on 4 themes, which she believes explain why humans, ‘homo sapiens’, have managed to gain a unique grasp of nature and themselves: fire, language, beauty and time. Her vision is certainly relevant, but also a bit predictable and obvious. What bothers me most, however, is that she makes an unlikely mix of facts and figures, often without proper source references. And in some cases her premises just are speculation, based on no or flimsy archaeological evidence. On that basis, I'm afraid I can't recommend reading this book, however interesting. It certainly not is on par with Harari, Christian, Pinker and others. More about that in my History-account on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3701641431