Where and when we - HOMO SAPIENS - began our career is the most hotly contested issue in science. It has explosive implications for the way we view race. If - as some anthropologists claim - we developed separately on the main continents, then there were several distinct kinds of humans. But the best evidence is that we originated in Africa about 100, 000 years ago and rapidly colonized the world. This is an astonishing story and Stringer and McKie tell it brilliantly.