Do the languages and genes of living people contain a historical record of the species? The pioneering work of Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza has answered this question with a decisive yes. "Genes, Peoples and Languages" serves as a summation of the author's work over several decades, the goal of which has been nothing less than tracking the past several hundred thousand years of human history. When and where did we evolve? How have human societies spread across the continents? How have cultural innovations affected the growth and spread of populations? What is the connection between genes and languages? Do racial classifications have any meaningful genetic basis? With their focus on written documents, professional historians can tell us nothing of the 99.9% of human history extending from our species' origins to the development of writing. Rich in incredible and fascinating detail, "Genes, Peoples and Languages" provides a panoramic tour of the missing hundreds of thousands of years, and provides a rare firsthand account of some of the most significant scientific work of our time.

Author Biography

Cavalli-Sforza was born in Genoa in 1922 and has taught at the universities of Cambridge, Parma and Pavia. He is currently Professor Emeritus of Genetics at Stanford University. He is the author of THE HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY OF THE HUMAN GENE.