The Dutch bestseller Nominated for Le Prix Nicolas Bouvier 'A masterclass in storytelling
exploring who we are and where we came from' Danielle Clode 'Gripping and brilliantly told We
Hominids deftly blends personal experience with a journalist's eye for a remarkable story' Mark
McKenna WHO ARE WE? WHY ARE WE DIFFERENT FROM ANIMALS? WHAT MAKES US HUMAN? In this charming
thought-provoking book one of Holland's greatest non-fiction writers hunts down answers to
humanity's most fundamental questions: Who are we? What makes us different from animals? With
an ancient skull as his starting point he travels the globe tracing the search for the first
human being: the missing link between humans and apes. Westerman introduces us to the world of
skull hunters - leading experts in our fossil ancestry - whose lives are just as fascinating as
those of their primeval discoveries. He astutely reconsiders the work of illustrious
paleoanthropologists in the light of new DNA technology postcolonialism and the rise of women
in this male-dominated field. Westerman discovers a plethora of origin hypotheses and shows how
any theory of who we are and where we come from is coloured by the zeitgeist. We Hominids is a
compelling mixture of reportage travelogue and essay - reminiscent of Bruce Chatwin or Ryszard
Kapuscinski - written by a brilliant storyteller and thinker.
