Institute of Human Origins
School of Human Evolution and Social Change
Arizona State University
Books by Donald Johanson
"A glorious success." ~ San Francisco Chronicle
"A riveting real life saga of scientific detection." ~ Cosmopolitan
"Sets a standard of excellence of science reporting." ~ Chicago Tribune
"Johanson is doing for the earth what Carl Sagan has done for the cosmos." ~ Cleveland Plain Dealer
"Fascinating ... enlightening reading." ~ Business Week
"Superb adventure... burns with the infectious excitement of hominid fever..." ~ Chicago Tribune
"An exciting, fast-moving, nuts-and-bolts narrative." ~ Washington Post Book World
"An authoritative and gripping account...brilliant." ~ John Pfeiffer, author of The Emergence of Humankind
"A fascinating and superbly illustrated interweaving of humankind's dramatic four-million-year history with the personal story and insights of an outstanding paleoanthropologist." ~ Ian Tattersall, Curator AMNH
"A wonderful account of archeological exploration and discovery in the worldwide quest for the earliest traces of man's ancestry and the origin of man, a subject which ranks in fascination with the enigmas and mysteries surrounding the origins of the universe and life itself." ~ Peter Matthiessen, author of African Silences
"This is quite an achievement." ~ New York Times
"...pulls the reader in with a riveting overview of modern anthropology." ~ Scientific America
"No serious student of paleoanthropology can afford to miss this magnificent, encyclopedic survey of human origins." ~ Publishers Weekly
"...Recounts his return to Ethiopia’s Hadar region in 1980 after a hiatus necessitated by political turmoil in the East African nation. Very engaging, thanks perhaps to popular scientific journalist Wong, it communicates the poignancy of Johanson’s occasionally nerve-racking return to the birthplace of his career with something of the verve and suspense of an Indiana Jones movie. Hooked by that adventurous beginning, and introduced to many of the figures whose work preoccupies what follows, many will continue with the book’s real meat, which implicatively but not literally argues that far from there being no missing link between apes and humans, there are several, complicatedly related, with more being found and likely to be found in the foreseeable future. " ~ Booklist