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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.

• We started tracking this book on July 15, 2024.
• This book was £9.99 when we started tracking it.
• The price of this book has changed 8 times in the past 438 days.
• The current price of this book is £8.03 last checked 12 hours ago.
• This lowest price this book has been offered at in the past 90 days is £4.99.
• This lowest price this book has been offered at in the past year is £2.49.
• The lowest price to date was £2.49 last reached on March 3, 2025.
• This book has been £2.49 one time since we started tracking it.
• The highest price to date was £11.38 last reached on July 31, 2025.
• This book has been £11.38 3 times since we started tracking it.

• Science & MathsBiological SciencesZoology
• Science & MathsGenetics

• Publication Date: October 17, 2024
• Text-to-Speech: Disabled
• Lending: Disabled
• Print Length: 357 Pages
• File Size: 811 KB