Transcendence: How Humans Evolved Through Fire, Language, Beauty, and Time

by Gaia Vince

***Shortlisted for the 2020 Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book Prize***

“I wrote this book to answer what, for me, is the biggest question: how did we become so different from all the other animals—able to alter our own destiny and that of the rest of life on earth?” —Gaia Vince.

Read our interview with Gaia Vince—whose last book, Adventures in the Anthropocene, won the 2015 Royal Society Science Book Prize—on the best books on the Anthropocene.

Recommendations from our site

“This is fascinating and all-encompassing view of evolution from the beginning of the human species to what we are today. It focuses particularly on evolution through fire, language, beauty and time. It’s intelligently and thoroughly researched, with an impressive body of publications and reading being covered. Gaia Vince has lived in three different countries and visited over 60. This comes through as she draws on her experience in various ways. She speaks with authority.” Read more...

The Best Science Books of 2020: The Royal Society Book Prize

Anne Osbourn,

The book, according to the author

For many years, I have been researching and documenting how humans are changing the planet to the extent that we are pushing it into a new geological age driven by our activities: the Anthropocene.

I wrote this book to answer what, for me, is the biggest question: how did we become so different from all the other animals—able to alter our own destiny and that of the rest of life on earth?

Transcendence is about human cultural evolution, how it made us, and where it’s taking us next.

Other books by Gaia Vince

Adventures in the Anthropocene: Journeys to the Heart of the Planet we Made
by Gaia Vince

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