The Staircase of Life: The Story of the Origin and Evolution of Life and Humankind

Even though we are all different in our own ways, we all have an underlying thread in common: our evolution, our history.

However, only roughly 0.0001% of the Earth’s whole history has been occupied by human beings with behaviorally contemporary traits. We are, in fact, right at the start of everything. Yet, in order to survive even for such a short period of time, a seemingly unending line of fortunate events was necessary.

But what were these fortunate events? How did Homo sapiens get here after many billion years and virtually infinite evolutionary crossroads? How did humankind ultimately conquer the world? And how did life emerge in the first place?

In this epic and compelling story, Gerard Alexander Willighagen strives to answer these and many more intriguing questions by taking you through space and time to explore the origins of life, the evolution and rise of Homo sapiens, the dawn and development of civilization, and the emergence and formation of the modern world we know today. In the process of meandering through this multi-billion-year story, we’ll come to appreciate the incredible good fortune that all living organisms, including our own highly evolved yet essentially Stone Age-wired species, have of just simply existing.

So, let’s take a huge step back in time—right at the initial steps of life—to ponder how exceptional our story truly is. However, as a short sneak peek in advance: our story is indeed exceptional, notable, and utterly captivating.

CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
INTRODUCTION

Part I THE BIOLOGICAL REVOLUTION
1. THE ORIGIN OF LIFE

• The Synthesis of Life
• The Big Birth

2. EVOLUTION THEORY

• Nature's Uniqueness
• Darwinism
• The Universal Struggle
• Natural Selection
• Convergent Evolution

3. THE ERUPTION OF LIFE

• The Tree of Life
• The Biological Big Bang
• The Age of Mammals

Part II THE COGNITIVE REVOLUTION
4. THE ADVENT OF SAPIENS

• The Human Family Tree
• The Cost of Thinking
• The Distinctiveness of Sapiens

5. HUMAN INSTINCT

• Our Stone Age Mind
• The Man Ghost
• The Wiring of the Brain
• Intertwined Instincts

6. THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE

• Cognitive Wiring
• The Power of Fiction

7. OUR LAST ANCESTORS

• Life and Death 3 Million Years Ago
• Muddle in the Middle
• Out of Africa

Part III THE IMPERIAL REVOLUTION
8. THE AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION

• The Last Ice Age
• The Great Flood
• The Dawn of Civilisation
• Humankind's Greatest Fraud

9. THE UNIFICATION OF HUMANKIND

• The Rise of Farmers
• The Power of Writing
• The Economic Order
• The Religious Order
• The Imperial Order

10. IMPERIAL HISTORY

• The New Stone Age
• The Bronze Age
• The Iron Age
• Classical Antiquity
• The Middle Ages

Part IV THE MODERN REVOLUTION
11. THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION

• The Age of Science
• The Costly Gamble
• The Rise of Capitalism
• European Imperialism
• The Evil Side of History

12. THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

• A New Ocean of Energy
• The Technical Revolt
• A Shocking Upheaval
• The Modern Revolution
• Pax Moderna

Part V AFTERWORD
13. THE END OF THE BEGINNING
14. SOURCES