Evan T. Davies

I liked the premise of this book. Approaching space colonization through anthropology and evolutionary history (rather than pure technology) seemed like an interesting and original endeavor. But I was disappointed by how little the authors actually make of it. The first 200 pages focus on evolution and anthropology with little reference or relevance to space travel. Anyone with a little bit of familiarity with these subjects will have read the same things before. The last 60 pages of the book finally get closer to space colonization, but the arguments remain vapid. The authors don't manage to make any good use of the preceding evolutionary presentation. All they have to say is that humanity should colonize space to ensure the long-term survival of the human species, because species tend to become extinct sooner or later. And we should begin colonization as soon as possible because civilization sometimes disintegrates.

These simple conclusions are an insufficient yield from a book of this length. My expectation was that this book would offer anthropologically or biologically informed speculation about how social relations and human life might develop in space colonies, but the authors don't seem to have enough imagination to take their analysis beyond the self-evident arguments. Perhaps evolutionary biology and anthropology really can provide valuable insights for space travel plans, but if so, the authors of this book failed to identify them.… (plus d'informations)