This book is a search through time. The author departs from the many "how to" manuals of successful living and instead delves into various ancient documents that together tell a compelling story of life. It is an epic that he skillfully shortens and retells as a personal journey of discovery. Taking the old sources seriously as worthwhile literature, he avoids both the overly-religious use of these documents as well as their easy dismissal by skeptical modern science. The result is a book written in a popular style, an enjoyable and relevant chronicle of "the fascinating flow of life as the ancients began to notice it."