My European Family: The First 54,000 Years

(Paperback)

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Description

Karin Bojs grew up in a small, broken family. At her mother's funeral she felt this more keenly than ever. So as part of the healing process, she decided to use DNA research to learn more about herself, her family and the interconnectedness of society. After all, we're all related. And in a sense, we are all family. My European Family tells the story of Europe and its people through its genetic legacy, weaving in the latest archaeological findings. Karin goes deep in search of her genealogy; by having her DNA sequenced and tested and effectively becoming an experimental subject, she was able to trace the path of her ancestors back, through the Viking age, through the Bronze age to the Neolithic and beyond into prehistory, back even further to a time when Neanderthals ran the European show. This book looks at genetics from a uniquely pan-European perspective, with the author meeting dozens of geneticists, historians and archaeologists in the course of her research. The genes of this seemingly ordinary modern European woman have a truly fascinating story to tell.

Reviews

Meticulous, up-to-date, and never tedious, [Bojs] draws from hundreds of scientific results to create a broad-brush picture of human evolution, showing us how DNA research is revolutionizing our knowledge of the past. * Wall Street Journal *
An extraordinary book ... part travel narrative, part family history, part scientific study. * Financial Times *
A rich, detailed and beautifully-written answer to the question 'how did we get here' My European Family is a vital and timely exploration of the genetic, social and cultural threads that connect and unite us. -- Kat Arney, science broadcaster and author of Herding Hemingway's Cats (2016)
Tells the story of all modern Europeans. * New European *

Author Bio

Karin Bojs is a Swedish author and journalist, and the former science editor of Swedish daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter. She lives in Gothenburg. @KarinBojs