biological sciences

This work, in hardback, is written with the advanced researcher in mind. The author is world famous for his pioneering efforts in identifying traits in particular traits in ethnic groups with unique genetic markers. The color plates in the index section can be helpful to those who know how to intrepret them.
It's a scholarly treatment of a highly technical subject and a thorough one as well. This is ground-breaking work collected from many samples and analyzed in detail. I think this should be required reading for college students in the field of genetic research.

Cavalli-Sforza presents the nearest approximation possible to the correlation of all measurable human genes, markers and attributes. You might think of the work as the "unified field theory" for evloutionary biology, culture and linguistics.

While the heft even of the abridged version is imposing, the component parts are manageable for those who already have basic statistical knowledge or who are willing to pay attention to the author's explanations. The world's populations are addressed in geographic chunks, and then at various appropriate points, more general conclusions drawn from the pieces.

Given the advances in genetic research acheived since publication, the model may ultimately prove more valuable than the particular contents...but for this decade the contents are fascinating.

The book provided a great deal of information about genetic distances and the relationships between populations. However, Mr. Martel's review includes lies and these lies must be addressed. First of all, the native North Africans were not "very blonde" or "nordic". In fact, the ORIGINAL population was as black as their rock art depictions of themselves (which just so happen to span the Sahara and date back nearly 10000yrs). Many of these Ancient Saharans were, however, completely abosorbed by an incoming of migrants from the Middle East. Perhaps these migrants are the people Mr. Martel is speaking of??? At any rate, with the dessication of the Sahara, most of the original Saharans (blacks) migrated South into The Sudan. In fact, they can still be found in West Africa today. They (especially the Fulani and Dogon) can be recognized in person as easily as they can be recognized in the Ancient Saharan depictions drawn by their ancestors.

Thus, despite Mr. Martel's comments to the contrary, the admixture seen in North Africans today is not so much the result of slaves (modern admixture) as it is the result of both modern admixture as well as ancient admixture - admixture which took place LONG before the Arabs ventured anywhere near the region. As for the Egyptians, they were from the same stock as the rest of North Africa and they almost always depicted themselves as brown and intermediate between and separate from both the white people of the North (Europe), the light skinned Semites (Middle East), and the darker, more Sudanese people of the South (Nubia).

Mr. Martel is not completely wrong in so far as SOME of these Middle Eastern migrants had blonde hair and light eyes (a few individual Lybians were depicted this way). But, such features were most probably seen at the same rate theyre seen in Middle Easterners and North Africans today. Neither people, however, are "Nordics", and to assume they descend from Nordics based on hair color alone is ridiculous. Blondism occurs in Aborigines... are we to believe they descend from Nordics as well? Somehow, I think not.