With Humanities Highlights, Himmelfarb staff aims to spotlight useful books from our Humanities collection. This week, we’re showcasing "Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past" by David Reich.
About the Book: From the front lines of the genomic revolution, David Reich lays out whole genome sequencing, the technologies that have reduced its costs [like the (now obsolete) robots that can decode DNA at a fraction of the cost], and insights that challenge preconceptions of ancestry. What emerges is a rich mosaic of human past that testifies to the "multitudes" we contain – to borrow Walt Whitman's term. Completed in 2003, the Human Genome Project will surely only keep yielding insights and implications. "Who We Are" testifies to that advancement and provides one of the more robust snapshots of the field in the late 2010s (published 2018).
Reasons to Read: Reich calls "Who We Are" a book of curiosity, and it indeed rewards the curious: the type of people interested in hidden history or excited by clues found in caves and riverbeds. Reich's work investigates "ghost populations:" people groups who no longer exist but can be inferred from the genetic record (and would fall outside written history). Therefore, Reich's book and similar research is worthwhile for readers looking to expand their understanding of just how far back the human experience goes – and how we have persevered around the globe.
Reasons to Avoid: If you're annoyed by misnomer titles. "Who We Are And How We Got Here" was a title probably picked by the publisher. A more accurate title would be: "Some Inferences About Human Nature and Clues of How We Got Here." Because whole-genome sequencing is both new and rapidly developing, any results will definitionally be inconclusive. Reich himself states that research-rate outpaces publishing and acknowledges that imminent research will most likely supersede his findings (p. xxi). We have no definitive answers: but many beginnings. So, if you're only partially invested in the conversation – then there could be wisdom in waiting.
For similar reasons, "Who We Are" is not a one-stop-shop on genetics. As a layperson myself, I would have benefited from more foundational knowledge in order to test the integrity of his claims. Other books are also in order.
Further Reading:
- "A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Stories in Our Genes" by Adam Rutherford. [Available through Consortium Loan]
- "DNA Demystified: Unravelling the Double Helix" by Alan McHughen [Available online at Himmelfarb]
- "CRISPR People" by Hank Greely [Available through Consortium Loan]
References:
Reich, D. (2018). Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past.
Vintage Books.
