The Powerful Primate
How Homo Sapiens Came to Dominate the Planet
Will be published approx. on 5. March 2026
Book
Hardback
304 pages
978-1-83643-130-5 (ISBN)
Description
Why are humans the most feared predator in the world?
Over three million years ago, a group of primates discovered tools. Perhaps it was a large rock, ideal for cracking nuts, or a stick to extract honey from a beehive. Regardless, the future of our planet was changed forever.
Slowly, the primate evolved, abandoning the trees for solid ground and four legs for two - and the tools changed with it. Stones were sharpened, then attached to sticks, before stone gave way to bronze, iron, steel. With axes came agriculture and the first permanent human settlements, which soon became villages, towns and cities. Sticks and stones transformed into gunpowder, the printing press, combustion engine, electric light, antibiotics and finally the computer. Through sheer invention, Homo sapiens had conquered the planet.
Tracing the evolution of humans into the planet's apex predator - the foremost 'bullies of the natural world' - Roland Ennos explores the miraculous and devastating power of human technology from the earliest tools to the present day.
Over three million years ago, a group of primates discovered tools. Perhaps it was a large rock, ideal for cracking nuts, or a stick to extract honey from a beehive. Regardless, the future of our planet was changed forever.
Slowly, the primate evolved, abandoning the trees for solid ground and four legs for two - and the tools changed with it. Stones were sharpened, then attached to sticks, before stone gave way to bronze, iron, steel. With axes came agriculture and the first permanent human settlements, which soon became villages, towns and cities. Sticks and stones transformed into gunpowder, the printing press, combustion engine, electric light, antibiotics and finally the computer. Through sheer invention, Homo sapiens had conquered the planet.
Tracing the evolution of humans into the planet's apex predator - the foremost 'bullies of the natural world' - Roland Ennos explores the miraculous and devastating power of human technology from the earliest tools to the present day.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 241 mm
Width: 163 mm
Thickness: 31 mm
Weight
520 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-83643-130-5 (9781836431305)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Roland Ennos is the author of The Wood Age and The Science of Spin. He is a visiting professor of biological sciences at the University of Hull and an expert on the mechanics of wood and the design of trees.