The renowned biologist and thinker Richard Dawkins presents his most expansive work in this revised edition that offers a comprehensive look at evolution. Loosely based on the form of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Dawkins's tale takes us modern humans back through four billion years of life on our planet. As the pilgrimage progresses, we join with other organisms at the forty ‘rendezvous points’ where we find a common ancestor. The band of pilgrims swells into a vast crowd as we join first with other primates, then with other mammals, and so on back to the first primordial organism.  Dawkins's brilliant, inventive approach allows us to view the connections between ourselves and all other life in a bracingly novel way. It also lets him shed bright new light on the most compelling aspects of evolutionary history and theory: sexual selection, speciation, convergent evolution, extinction, genetics, plate tectonics, geographical dispersal, and more.   “One of Dawkins's best: a big, almost encyclopedic compendium bursting with information and ideas.” -  Kirkus Reviews  “This clever approach to our extended family tree should prove a natural hit with science readers.” - Publishers Weekly