African Genesis A Personal Investigation into the Animal Origins and Nature of Man Robert Ardey

African Genesis A Personal Investigation into the Animal Origins and Nature of Man

Author: Robert Ardrey Illustrated by Berdine Ardrey  

Publisher: Collins    

Edition: First 1961

ISBN: Not stated 

Language: English  

Condition: Good. Clean copy with tight binding 

Binding: Hardcover with dustjacket    

Pages: 379. Print with images. 

Additional Information

Not in innocence, and not in Asia, was mankind born. So opens Robert Ardrey's earthshaking 1961 classic African Genesis, his first professional foray into the scientific realm.

In 1955 Ardrey travelled to Africa to examine the collection of the then-obscure paleontologist Raymond Dart. He saw, culled from a cave occupied by early humans, a collection of antelope jawbones perfect for sawing, and antelope forelegs perfect for clubbing. He saw the skull of a juvenile proto-human, apparently bashed in. A growing body of evidence suggested that man had evolved on the African continent from carnivorous, predatory stock, who had also, long before man, achieved the use of weapons.

An acclaimed dramatist, Ardrey's interest in the African discoveries sprang less from purely scientific grounds than from the radical new light they cast on the eternal question: Why do we behave as we do? Are we naturally inclined towards war and weapons? From 1955 to 1961, Ardrey commuted between the museums and libraries and laboratories of the North, and the games reserves and fossil beds of Africa trying to answer that question.

The result was African Genesis. In a sweeping work that encompasses the evolutionary roots of nationalism and patriotism, private property and social order, hierarchy and status-seeking, and even conscience, Ardrey tells a story of man never before heard, and redefines what exactly it means to be human.

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Eugene Marais | Robert Ardrey | Genesis