The Genetic Book of the Dead

<p><b><i>THE TIMES</i> BEST SCIENCE BOOK OF 2024</b><br><br><b><i>GUARDIAN</i> BEST IDEAS BOOKS OF 2024</b><br><br><b><i>ECONOMIST </i>BEST BOOKS OF 2024</b><br><br><b><i>FINANCIAL TIMES</i> BEST BOOKS OF 2024<br></b><br><b>From one of the world¿s great science writers, a book that explores the deepest principles of evolutionary history.</b><br><br>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.<br><br>But such descriptions are more than skin-deep. The fine chisels of Darwinian natural selection carve their way through the very warp and wo