Selected as a book of the year 2017 byThe TimesandSunday Times

Humans cannot live without stories. But one story has proved itself the most durable and hauntingly real of all time. The mythic tale of Adam and Eve has shaped conceptions of human origins and destiny for centuries. Stemming from a few verses in an ancient book, it became not just the foundation of three major world faiths, but has evolved through art, philosophy and science to serve as the mirror in which we seem to glimpse the whole, long history of our fears and desires.

What is it about Adam and Eves story that fascinates us? What does it tell us about how our species lives, dies, works or has sex?

In a quest that begins at the dawn of time, Stephen Greenblatt takes us from ancient Babylonia to the forests of east Africa. We meet evolutionary biologists and fossilised ancestors; we grapple with morality and marriage in MiltonsParadise Lost; and we decide if the Fall is the unvarnished truth or fictional allegory.

Ultimately,The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eveallows us a new understanding of ourselves.

Stephen Greenblattis Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University. He is the author of twelve books, includingThe Swerve: How the World BecameModern, which won the National Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize, as well as the New York Times bestsellerWill in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeareand the classic university textRenaissance Self-Fashioning.

He is General Editor ofThe Norton Anthology of English Literatureand ofThe Norton Shakespeare,and has edited seven collections of literary criticism.