When Humans Nearly Vanished: The Catastrophic Explosion of the Toba Volcano

Written by Donald R. Prothero

Narrated by Qarie Marshall

This fascinating true story of the Mount Toba supervolcano eruption—the largest eruption in the past 28 million years—explores its lasting impact on human evolution.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dreamscape Media
• Release date: Oct 16, 2018
• ISBN: 9781666570717

Donald R. Prothero

Donald R. Prothero specializes in physics, planetary sciences, astronomy, earth sciences, and vertebrate paleontology. He has taught for more than thirty years at the college level, including at Columbia, Knox, Pierce, Vassar, and the California Institute of Technology. He has authored or edited more than three hundred scientific papers and thirty books, including Giants of the Lost World: Dinosaurs and Other Extinct Monsters of South America.

Reviews for When Humans Nearly Vanished

[Louise Quekett · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Not really about the toba eruption. Extremely discursive ramble through some random topics in palaeontology and anthropology which is somewhat interesting in some parts, but not worth wading through the rest which is stodgy, poorly argued speculative nonsense about the private and professional lives and motives of certain scientists- obviously makes sense to the author but not to the reader. Disappointing.

[Roger · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Well -told story covering geology, paleontology and genetics. I give the author credit for citing studies critical of his theory and rebutting them. On the downside, the author didn't have enough material for an entire book, so had to pad it with a lot of tangential stories, like the discovery of DNA's structure and the eruption of Vesuvius. Many of these stories are well-known, and it is tedious to wade through them.

[Matt · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Impossible to listen to because of metric and imperial measurements. Basically every sentence has a measurement that is repeated .