DOMESTICATED - EVOLUTION IN A MAN-MADE WORLD

How did the deadly wolf evolve into the lap-loving Pekingese, the wildcat into the tabby cat, and the awe-inspiring auroch into the meek milk-producing cow? It happened through the process that biologists call domestication. Domesticated creatures have served us well.

In fact, without them, civilization as we know it would not exist. A natural storyteller, Richard C. Francis weaves history, archaeology, and anthropology to create a fascinating narrative while seamlessly integrating the most cutting-edge ideas in twenty-first-century biology, from genomics to evo-devo.

Each domesticated species is a case study in evolution. Two key themes emerge: that domestication often results in the retention of juvenile traits, and that, for all the spectacular alterations wrought by natural and artificial selection, evolution remains fundamentally a conservative process: the Pekingese, for example, retains ample evidence of its wolf ancestry. In the final chapters, Francis explores the ways in which t