Last Ape Standing · the Seven-Million-Year Story of How and Why We Survived

Over the past 150 years scientists have discovered evidence that at least twenty-seven species of humans evolved on planet Earth. What enabled us to survive when all the others were shown the evolutionary door?

Chip Walter tells the intriguing tale of how against all odds and despite nature’s capricious ways we stand here today, the planet’s most dominant species. Drawing on a wide variety of scientific disciplines, he reveals how a rare evolutionary phenomenon led to the uniquely long childhoods that make us so resourceful and emotionally complex. Walter explains how the evolution of our highly social nature has shaped our moral (and immoral) behavior. He also plumbs the roots of our creativity and investigates why we became self-aware in ways that no other animal is. Along the way, Last Ape Standing profiles the mysterious "others" who evolved with us—the Neanderthals of Europe, the "hobbits" of Indonesia, the Denisovans of Siberia, and the recently discovered Red Deer Cave people of China, who died off just as we stood on the brink of civilization eleven thousand years ago.

Last Ape Standing is evocative science writing at its best—a witty, engaging and accessible story that explores the evolutionary events that molded us into the remarkably unique creatures we are.

From BooklistImages of hirsute, slack-jawed Neanderthals are so ingrained in popular culture that nearly anyone can readily identify this cave dweller as a long-extinct predecessor of modern man. Yet according to science writer Walter, most people are shocked to learn that 25 other species of humans besides Neanderthals and contemporary Homo sapiens evolved on our planet over the last seven million years. In this captivating and informative field trip through man’s paleontological past, Walter stitches together the piecemeal story of our unlucky ancestors and showcases the adaptive characteristics that allowed our kind to—so far—make the evolutionary cut. Some of the more intriguing vanished species profiled here are the diminutive, hobbit-like Homo floresiensis of Indonesia and the recently discovered Red Deer Cave people of China. Among the many survival advantages Walter highlights in comparing today’s humans with these earlier species are their prolific creativity and significantly longer childhoods. An exceptionally well-written overview of man’s evolutionary history as well as an accessible guide to the underappreciated field of paleoanthropology. --Carl Hays

Review“Chip Walter's Last Ape Standing is provocative, insightful and engaging; a rare trifecta among science books. Nearly every page offers something that will surprise or intrigue you.”—Ray Kurzweil, inventor, futurist, and author of How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed

“I read Last Ape Standing while sitting, then I jumped up and cheered. It’s that good!” – William Shatner

“The saga of human evolution is far from a straight line from ape to angel, with all but one of many species going extinct.  Chip Walter's thoroughly enjoyable new book considers the evolutionary and social forces that crafted us, modern humans, and presents an intriguing scenario of why Homo sapiens is the Last Ape Standing.”—Donald Johanson, discoverer of Lucy and founding director of the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University

“This book has a way of making you feel magnificently insignificant and at the same time an essential, vital part of the chain of human evolution. Just when you thought you were fully evolved as a human.....think again. Mind blowing stuff!”--Michael Keaton

"[An] engrossing, up-to-date account of human evolution."--Kirkus

"[A] captivating and informative field trip through man's paleontological past...an exceptionally well-written overview of man's evolutionary history as well as an accessible guide to the underappreciated field of paleoanthropology."--Booklist

"Whether reading as a student or simply somone interested in how we came to be who we are today, Last Ape Standing provides a captivating look at science's evidence of evolution." -- ShelfAwareness

"[An] engaging accounts...shed[s] a fascinating light on our evolutionary success." -- New Yorker

"Chip Walter has made himself indispensable to audiences craving the latest information about our evolutionary past. No one wrties about early man, evolutionary dead ends or our pre-human rivals better than Chip Walter. If all science books were this witty and well-written, everyone would be a nerd." -- Pittsburgh Post Gazette

"Walter takes an antic delight in the triumphal adaptations and terrifying near misses of human evolution...Last Ape Standing makes for a lively journey." -- New York Times Book Review