Review by Booklist Review
The most remarkable of all our domestic animals is also our oldest living creation. Wolves started becoming dogs some 40,000 years ago, somewhere in eastern Europe after Homo sapiens arrived in the region. In prose both scientific and poetic, geneticist and author (DNA USA, 2012) Sykes, self-described as ""not a dog person"" but curious about the parallel evolution of dog and human, takes us through the archaeological, paleontological, behavioral, and genetic evidence pinpointing the transformation of wolf to dog. He also examines the changes humans made in their own behavior early in the metamorphosis as they learned from their new companions, and the two species evolved together. Once dogs were firmly fixed as a species distinct from wolves, humans began to tinker with more specific uses of dogs and their physical appearance. This leads Sykes to ponder the rise of the purebred dog, in Victorian times, and a fascinating discussion of the genetics of modern canines. Woven throughout are possible answers to why humans are so in love with their dogs, making for a warmly engaging popular-science read.--Nancy Bent Copyright 2019 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Sykes (The Seven Daughters of Eve), an Oxford genetics professor, delivers an uneven look at how wolves evolved alongside humans into docile companions and helpers. The book is rich with details about how humans have studied and shaped dog evolution, including profiles of researchers Shaun Ellis and Farley Mowat, who studied dogs' evolutionary roots by living among wolf packs in the wild; and dog breeding case studies, such as how Victorian naturalist and sportsman Dudley Coutts Marjoribanks engineered the golden retriever to include "all the features required for a modern gun-dog." Sykes also explores the diverse relationships humans have with dogs, or dog surrogates, ranging from working dogs on a New Zealand wool farm to the companionship between a Scottish academic and his robotic dog. Along with an obvious fluency with genetics, Sykes also has a gift for rendering complex concepts, such as mitochondrial DNA or genetic microsatellites, accessible to lay readers. However, passages outside his specialty, such as a discussion of cave paintings or a selection of interviews with dog owners, can come across as filler. Including moments of fascinating history and insight alongside a few too many discursive moments, Sykes's survey ends up being less than the sum of its parts. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Sykes (human genetics, Oxford; The Seven Daughters of Eve) presents an easy-to-understand, scientific explanation for the genetic origins of dogs. He uses dogs' evolution from wolves, as proven in a pivotal 1997 paper published in Science magazine, as the jumping-off point to discuss pertinent genetic issues, such as the inheritability of diseases and the genesis of different dog breeds. Though Sykes describes himself as "not a dog person," he includes a series of interviews conducted by his wife with dog owners that detail their relationships with their beloved pets, which serves as a nice counterpoint to the preceding technical content. Reading this is like having your own personal geneticist explain complex research papers in a way that is both comprehensible and fascinating. Heavily peppered with references to scientific papers that have documented the research on dog genetics, this also serves as a wealth of further reading material. VERDICT Rich in accessible analogies that deftly explain complex scientific concepts, this is a must-read for anybody who has wondered about the origins of humans' best friend.-Diana Hartle, Univ. of Georgia Science Lib., Athens © Copyright 2019. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
How did wolves evolve into dogs? Sykes (Genetics/Oxford Univ.; The Nature of the Beast, 2015, etc.) reviews the state of the art on matters canine and lupine.Past studies of canine evolution have relied on osteological and archaeological evidence, but since 2005, the fully sequenced dog genome has been available, allowing, among other things, for "re-drawing the evolutionary tree of dog breeds constructed with mitochondrial DNA over twenty years previously." Five years later, writes the author, a new family tree was published, with all 64 breedseven the Chihuahuapointing back to the wolf. Some of those breeds are "ancient," such as the Basenji and Samoyed; others are quite recent. Making those breeds required domestication, for which Sykes finds no evidence before about 50,000 years agostill far earlier than previous studies have projected. Like other scholars, the author locates that origin in shared hunting, a process that may have altered humans as much as dogs in "the unstoppable current of natural selection." Scholarly argument persists over whether the original raw materials of the dog were really wolves and not coyotes, jackals, hyenas, and other canids. Sykes charts the development of the Carnivora before settling, persuasively, on the scenario of Paleolithic hunters working in concert with wolves to bring down large game such as bison. The author goes on to examine some of the mutations that subsequently allowed human breeders to select for certain characteristics, whether the ridge of the ridgeback or the pigmentation of the bull terrier (with a passing nod to the heterochromia exhibited by David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust). Melanism, hyperuremia, progressive rod-cone retinal degeneration: The author's discussion can be densely technical at times but never enough to render the text inaccessible to those without a background in genetics and population dynamics. Moreover, he closes by looking outside of nature to find the nurture connected to our love of dogs, that "amazing psychic symbiosis."Scientifically inclined dog lovers will find this a trove of information and provocation. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
