The 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.

Review

Overflowing with the beauty of nature, the beauty of language, and the beauty of ideas. ― Steven Pinker, author of Rationality and Enlightenment Now

Dazzling in originality and scope, with beautiful illustrations, this is a wonderful celebration of the power of natural selection. Richard Dawkins reveals with brilliant clarity the imprint on organisms of their evolutionary past. ― Nick Davies, author of Cuckoo: Cheating By Nature

The ingenuity of evolution is infinite, a fact that fascinates Richard Dawkins as much as it fascinated Charles Darwin. Inside each organism he finds rich palimpsests chronicling the history of life itself. ― Matt Ridley, author of The Evolution of Everything and How Innovation Works

Once again, Richard Dawkins asks us to look at the living world in a totally novel way: Every organism carries, in its genes, a record of the past environments in which its ancestors survived. This brilliant new way of interpreting nature opens our eyes to both the past and the future. ― John R. Krebs, author of Food: A Very Short Introduction and co-author, An Introduction to Behavioral Ecology

Written with typical verve and panache, Richard Dawkins's The Genetic Book of the Dead makes a brilliant
contribution to the public understanding of evolution using our most up-to-date understanding of genetics. It
will enthral, surprise, and challenge you. Read it!

― Jerry A. Coyne, author of Why Evolution is True and Faith Versus Fact

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 of evolution in action... [Dawkins'] ability to tell the glorious tale of evolution in action remains unrivalled. ― Financial Times

A medley and a melody: a revisiting and extension of his previous ideas about evolution written with elegance and beauty. The very word 'reverie' suggests a pleasant and roaming meditation, which is exactly what The Genetic Book of the Dead is. ― Freethinker Magazine

A book that will inform, intrigue and fascinate its readers ― The TLS

About the Author

Richard Dawkins is one of the world's most eminent writers and thinkers. He is the award-winning author of The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, The God Delusion and a string of other bestselling science books, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the Royal Society of Literature. Dawkins lives in Oxford.

Jana Lenzová born and raised in Bratislava, Slovakia, is an illustrator, translator and interpreter. After Jana had been commissioned to translate The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins into Slovak, she began contributing to his books as an illustrator.