The Dragons of Eden

Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence

By: Carl Sagan

Narrated by: JD Jackson, Ann Druyan

The Pulitzer Prize Winner

Dr. Carl Sagan takes us on a great adventure, offering his vivid and startling insight into the brain of man and beast, the origin of human intelligence, the function of our most haunting legends - and their amazing links to recent discoveries.

©1977 Carl Sagan (P)2017 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

Critic reviews

"A history of the human brain from the big bang, fifteen billion years ago, to the day before yesterday . . . . It's a delight." --The New York Times

“How can I persuade every intelligent person to read this important and elegant book? . . . He talks about all kinds of things: the why of the pain of human childbirth . . . the reason for sleeping and dreaming . . . chimpanzees taught to communicate in deaf and dumb language . . . the definition of death . . . cloning . . . computers . . . intelligent life on other planets. . . . Fascinating . . . delightful.” --The Boston Globe

“In some lost Eden where dragons ruled, the foundations of our intelligence were laid. . . . Carl Sagan takes us on a guided tour of that lost land. . . . Fascinating . . . entertaining . . . masterful.” --St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Carl Sagan is my only god

Great for students of all sciences. I really loved this book as a first year student of biology. It was helpful in solidifying material and gaining further insight to it.

Great book.

I learned a lot about things I didn’t know before. The last hour-ish felt a little like a Stephen King novel but nonetheless I enjoyed the other 8 or so hours. “hiyo silver, away!” I can picture hell being something like having a loudspeaker screaming this phrase to torture me for an eternity. Not that I believe in such a place.

Interesting but dated

Interesting view from 1977. I think Sagan would have wanted to update it. There were many things where time has changed his statements dramatically. His accounts of computers look primitive now. And his review of the causes of the demise of the dinosaurs cover many possibilities it not the one that is currently the consensus view.

Nicely Presented, Still Relevant, Repetitive

I enjoyed several of Sagan's other books so I decided to try this one. Surprisingly. 40 years later, much of his ideas are still relevant. My only criticism is that his initial observations were repeated multiple times with only slight permutations.

Another informative book!

Great book and a lot of interesting topics. given that this was written 40 years ago, some of the information is outdated, but I think there are still some universal concepts worth learning about