Jelle Reumer is director of the Rotterdam Natural History Museum and professor of palaeontology at the University of Utrecht. Aside from his many scientific publications, he has a strong public presence through his columns for de Volkskrant, Bionieuws, Maarten! and Vroege Vogels, and as a much sought after expert on radio and televi- sion. His previous book, The Exploded Ape (2005), was also aimed at a broad readership.
(Historische Uitgeverij, 2011, 148 pages)
Perhaps the hardest to accept of all Darwin’s truths is that human beings are not the goal of evolution but its accidental and transient result. In Homo Urbanus Jelle Reumer takes that as his starting point for a remorseless analysis of the fate of man. He zooms in on the repercussions of our temporality and elegantly demonstrates how life is made possible by a process of decay, death and extinction. ‘Decay keeps individuals going, death ensures that species continue to exist and extinction allows the earth’s biosphere to survive and flourish.’
