Burenhelt, Goren. People of the Stone Age: Hunter-Gatherers and Early Farmers. 1994. Short articles and extensive illustrations of the transition to agriculture, presented as part of the American Museum of Natural History’s excellent Illustrated History of Humankind.

Christian, David. Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History. 2002. An elegant examination of the story of the cosmos, from the Big Bang to today.

Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, 2d ed. 2005. Extremely influential and wide-ranging examination of the long-term impact of agriculture, animal domestication, and the environment on differing rates of development around the world.

Ehrlich, Paul R., and Anne H. Ehrlich. Dominant Animal: Human Evolution and the Environment. 2009. By two of today’s leading biologists; traces the impact of humans on the planet from the Paleolithic to today.

Fagan, Brian M. People of the Earth: An Introduction to World Prehistory, 13th ed. 2009. A thorough survey that presents up-to-date scholarship, designed for students.

Gamble, Clive. Timewalkers: The Prehistory of Global Colonization. 2006. A lively examination of how and why humans came to be everywhere in the world.

Hawkes, Kristen, and Richard R. Paine. The Evolution of Human Life History. 2006. A series of articles that examine the ways in which the distinctions between humans and other animals came to be.

Hrdy, Sarah Blaffer. Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Human Understanding. 2009. Provides the new, more egalitarian perspective on evolution.

Lewin, Roger. Human Evolution: An Illustrated Introduction, 5th ed. 2004. A relatively compact and very readable introduction that includes the newest archaeological and chemical evidence.

Lewis-Williams, David, and David Pearce. Inside the Neolithic Mind: Consciousness, Cosmos, and the Realm of the Gods. 2005. An analysis of Neolithic belief systems and the cultural products that resulted from them.

McCarter, Susan Foster. Neolithic. 2007. An introductory survey of the development and impact of agriculture, with many illustrations.

Pinker, Steven. How the Mind Works, 2d ed. 2009. An insightful examination of how the mind evolved, along with a survey of modern brain science.

Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. 2007. A witty and thoughtful look at the way food is produced today, and how this contrasts with our foraging past.

Tattersall, Ian. Masters of the Planet: The Search for Our Human Origins. 2012. An up-to-date survey of how humans evolved, in a lively narrative written for general readers.