Peter Le May

A book of ideas about 'homo' evolution put about by a man that imagines himself a scholar. From the outset over its first 50 or 80 pages the text is so flawed by presumption alone that one could be forgiven for reading it as dark comedy or science fiction. The assumptions are odd at best and his ideas about 'the invention' of fiction are ridiculous. And I say this as an atheist of deep conviction and a discreditor of mumbo-jumbo. His approach to the rise of imagination the capacity to remember and build on a knowledge base and for learning that may have given rise to myths and ways of controlling or organising amongst early sapiens are stilted and jaundiced to the point of silliness. The direct one to one intertwining of genetic change with key aspects of change in homo sapiens behaviour is stated as obvious but it is simply unfounded opinion. The author uses his biases and a fine array prejudice to define his thesis about fictions along with imagined scenarios to set the scene for his ideas on how early us become us. The book may be read with interest but an inquiring mind is recommended. The book will be held up as insightful by many who are uncritical of its pretension to scholarship with crafted paragraphs coming off the page as scholarly fact. But facts are scant and this model the author has imagined up is presented in a very misleading way. The entire book adds nothing to the study of and understanding of human development, human thought or the steady and irreversible pathway to our dominant place amongst animals. Pop scholarship at its worst as the author appears to believehimselff and is thus convincing. The reality is he adds nothing to the subject (large as it is) and may be doing some harm with his didactic approach to the fundamentals and possibilities of our evolution, in effect reducing these down to very narrow opinions of our start and how we assended above othe homo lines to be tbd only species of man standing. Definitely the first and last writing by this man that I will read. The work is so questionable that it really warrents a refutation.... just the first few chapters would do adequately.