1 item successfully added to your wishlist

0 items successfully added to your cart

There was a problem adding to your cart. Please try again.

Skip to content
product gallery

The Powerful Primate

How Homo Sapiens Came to Dominate the Planet

by Roland Ennos

Why are humans the most feared predator in the world?

Over five million years ago, a group of primates discovered tools. Perhaps it was a large rock, ideal for cracking nuts, or a stick to extract honey from a beehive. Regardless, the future of our planet was changed forever.

Slowly, the primate evolved, abandoning the trees for solid ground and four legs for two - and the tools changed with it. Stones were sharpened, then attached to sticks, before stone gave way to bronze, iron, steel. With axes came agriculture and the first permanent human settlements, which soon became villages, towns and cities. Sticks and stones transformed into gunpowder, the printing press, combustion engine, electric light, antibiotics and finally the computer. Through sheer invention, Homo sapiens had conquered the planet.

Tracing the evolution of humans into the planet's apex predator - the foremost 'bullies of the natural world' - Roland Ennos explores the miraculous and devastating power of human technology from the earliest tools to the present day.

READ MORE

pre-order available

Please note: Pre-order and on order items will ship as soon as they arrive in store.

Pages:

304

Published:

5 Mar 2026

Format

Hardback

Publisher

Oneworld Publications

ISBN:

9781836431305

Why are humans the most feared predator in the world?

Over five million years ago, a group of primates discovered tools. Perhaps it was a large rock, ideal for cracking nuts, or a stick to extract honey from a beehive. Regardless, the future of our planet was changed forever.

Slowly, the primate evolved, abandoning the trees for solid ground and four legs for two - and the tools changed with it. Stones were sharpened, then attached to sticks, before stone gave way to bronze, iron, steel. With axes came agriculture and the first permanent human settlements, which soon became villages, towns and cities. Sticks and stones transformed into gunpowder, the printing press, combustion engine, electric light, antibiotics and finally the computer. Through sheer invention, Homo sapiens had conquered the planet.

Tracing the evolution of humans into the planet's apex predator - the foremost 'bullies of the natural world' - Roland Ennos explores the miraculous and devastating power of human technology from the earliest tools to the present day.

$45.00
Add to wishlist
You might also like

You might also like

View all general science