Product Description

Exploring the genetic roots of Britain and Ireland

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #31045 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-12
• Binding: Hardcover
• 306 pages

Synopsis
Bryan Sykes, the world's first genetic archaeologist, takes us on a journey around the family tree of Britain and Ireland, to reveal how our tribal history still colours the country today. In 54BC, Julius Caesar launched the first Roman invasion of Britain. His was the first detailed account of the Celtic tribes that inhabited the Isles. But where had they come from and how long had they been there? When the Roman eventually left five hundred years later, they were succeeded by invasions of Anglo-Saxons, Vikings and Normans. Did these successive invasions obliterate the genetic legacy of the Celts, or have very little effect? After two decades tracing the genetic origins of people from all over the world, Bryan Sykes has now turned the spotlight on his own back yard. In a major research programme, the first of its kind, he and his team at Oxford University set out to test the DNA of over 10,000 volunteers from across Britain and Ireland with the specific aim of answering this very question: what is our modern genetic make-up and what does it tell us of our tribal past? Where are today's Celtic genes? Did Vikings only rape and pillage, or settle with their families?

And what of the genetic legacy of the Saxons and the Normans? Are the modern people of the Isles a delicious genetic cocktail? Or did the invaders keep mostly to themselves forming separate genetic layers within the Isles? And where do you fit in? As his findings came in, Bryan Sykes discovered that the genetic evidence revealed often very different stories to the conventional accounts coming from history and archaeology. "Blood of the Isles" reveals the nature of our genetic make-up as never before and what this says about our attitudes to ourselves, each other, and to our past. It is a gripping story that will fascinate and surprise with its conclusions.

Customer Reviews

Thin, rushed, poorly presented
I expected much better of this book having read Syke's previous "Seven Daughters of Eve." I read Sykes because he's a famed geneticist, but he pads most of the book with straight chapters on British history that any 3rd rate historian could have penned. When it comes to the meat of the issue, the DNA of Britain, he hedges and dumbs down so much that you suspect he's not confident at all of his findings. One frustratingly obvious example is when he labels a particular strain of male Y- chromosome DNA "Wodan" and never explains what it is. You assume it's a reference to a Germanic strain, but Sykes doesn't bother to tell us through 200-plus pages. His information is so annoyingly sketchy and incomplete I suspect he rushed the book into print to satisfy the advertising needs of his DNA testing business. Overall, the biggest frustration with Sykes' work is his refusal to explain with satisfaction why, if we all descend from people who lived in southern Europe during the last ice age, how he can distinguish "Celtic" DNA from "Anglo-Saxon" DNA in Britain. Couldn't the Paleolithic clan have migrated to Germany, and then later to Britain? If so, how can he say who's Celtic and who's Anglo Saxon. A mess of a book. Just read Norman Davies "The Isles" and consider yourself lucky.

Blood Transfusion Needed
Popular science writing does not have to be dumb. Steve Jones , Richard Dawkins ,
Matt Ridley, Richard Fortey and others can tackle technical/scientific subjects and still
produce something enjoyable to the general reader without sacrificing all the scientific "meat".
This book , although enjoyable , is thin stuff compared to the output of the above writers.
Sykes is perfectly entitled to produce a "Blue Peter" version of a fascinating topic but I
can't help thinking that a chance has been missed. As others have noted , the rampant egotism
and commercialism further taints the appreciation of what might have been a feast. Mr Sykes
should not patronise the reading public by assuming that the addition of cosy anecdotes and
mythological waffle will compensate for the absence of real substance.

An interesting read, but "dumbed-down" too far
Bryan Sykes gives the story of his travels around the Isles collecting samples, with many interesting anecdotes along the way. In the last few pages he gives his views on the meaning of the results. The problem is that he does not give enough detail on what those results actually were for the reader to form an opinion on the reliability of his conclusions.

Several comments in the book indicate that Sykes was very keen not to make the book too technical for the general reader. A laudable aim, but the secret of a good popular science book is to make the science comprehensible and interesting to readers without a scientific background - not to leave out the science. There is a reference to a web site where the details can be found, but they should have been in the book.