Pandora's Seed: The Unforeseen Cost of Civilization - Tapa dura

Draws on genetic and anthropological data to explain how the human race's transition from hunter-gatherers to farming enabled the modern world while setting the groundwork for over-population, religious fundamentalism and pandemic disease. By the author of The Journey of Man.

Spencer Wells is an Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society and Frank H. T. Rhodes Class of '56 Professor at Cornell University. He leads the Genographic Project, which is collecting and analyzing hundreds of thousands of DNA samples from people around the world in order to decipher how our ancestors populated the planet. Wells received his Ph.D. from Harvard University and conducted postdoctoral work at Stanford and Oxford. He has written two other books, The Journey of Man and Deep Ancestry. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife, a documentary filmmaker.