"In this daring, learned, and humane book, Oren Harman attempts to create for a modern scientific understanding of the universe the myths in which, for as long as we can remember, human beings have always encoded their deepest perceptions of the truth. What emerges is a revelatory restoration of wonder."
– Stephen Greenblatt, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Swerve: How the World Became Modern
"Evolutions is a dazzling voyage of the imagination, the story of our origins from the Big Bang to planets to life, told in the language and style of an epic poem. Intelligent, provocative, playful, and beautifully written."
– Alan Lightman, Professor of the Practice of the Humanities, MIT, and author of Einstein's Dreams
"Brilliantly conceived stories of the evolution of our universe and ourselves. With impressive erudition, Oren Harman shows the impossibility of a science free from myths and metaphors."
– Denis Noble, Fellow of the Royal Society and author of The Music of Life
"Evolutions is brilliant. It is a wholly original contribution to the way science ought to become part of the way we think about the universe and talk about the meaning of life. Harman weaves in astonishing erudition lightly. In elegant language, he gives the reader an accessible model of how science ought to contribute to our sense of values and the way we think about ourselves. Harman bypasses all the clichés that pit science against religion and juxtapose fact and myth. A moving and provocative achievement."
– Leon Botstein, President of Bard College
"Oren Harman is a scientist with a literary soul, a dreamer with a scientist's rigor, and a historian consumed above all by our present. In Evolutions he explores the mysteries and miracles of science in majestically human terms, showing what science so often leaves out – the love, passion, and discovery in life as we actually know it."
– Samantha Power, Anna Lindh Professor of the Practice of Global Leadership and Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School
"Oren Harman brilliantly adapts the story-telling form of myth to present the evolutions that have shaped our physical world and its living inhabitants – from the origins of the universe through the advent of sex and on to vision and consciousness. He affectionately personalizes Nature – his Sun and Moon speak to each other – making it accessible without distorting it. He matches scientific erudition with a humanist's sensibilities and a poet's flair for language. A remarkably original and eloquent book."
– Daniel J. Kevles, Stanley Woodward Professor of History Emeritus, Yale University
"In Evolutions, Oren Harman captures the poetic and emotional depths of processes uncovered by modern science such as the big bang, sex and death, multicellularity, consciousness, language. More bizarre, more incredible than the ancient myths, the myths of science told by Harman are based on exacting and arduous research yet go to the roots of human perceptions and emotions making explicit the sense of beauty and awe that drives scientific activity. It is a book that will bring the poet to science, and the scientist to poetry."
– Eva Jablonka, author of Evolution in Four Dimensions
