A History of Human Storytelling and Why it Matters

Origin Stories is an extraordinary journey through deep time, showing how storytelling created our world as we know it today. It delves into the evolution of speech, explores the genesis of ancient legends and the beginnings of the written word, and takes us from the earliest fireside tales to the millions of stories uploaded to social media every day. The book begins 7 million years ago, when a species of great ape stopped trying to make its living from the tree canopy, and took its chances on the ground. What happened next would change the course of global history.

In this deeply intelligent work, Professor David Clifford ties together anthropology, natural history and psychology to chart how those great apes developed language to figure out how to scavenge for meat efficiently, co-parent, and keep their social groups safe from dangerous grifters, and how their evolution of speech created the world we know today. Clifford explains that the story of humanity cannot be separated from our species’ gift for storytelling, and that the single thread that runs through our ancestors’ greatest inventions is our species’ unique ability to tell a narrative about our past and imagine a future yet to come. For readers of Nexus by Yuval Noah Harari and Eve by Cat Bohannon, Clifford shows that storytelling forged our history – and that those who tell the most powerful stories will control our future.