Ancestors

Name: Ancestors
Price: 39.99 AUD
Availability: OutOfStock
ISBN: 9780008394356

Maya Jasanoff

$39.99

Paperback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We will update you on expected arrival time to us. If this delay is too long, please let us know within 2 business days and we can give you options regarding cancelling or adjusting your order. More details on cancelling your order can be found in our Terms of Trade.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

William Collins
28 January 2026

General & world history; Ancient history: to c 500 CE; Genealogy, heraldry, names & honours; Family history, tracing ancestors

Where do we come from and why do we care?

From Maya Jasanoff, winner of the prestigious Cundhill History Award 2018, this is an extraordinary, major exploration of ancestry and its defining role in human history.

We live in an age of identity politics, with complicated questions of home, displacement, heritage and community. We have been bowled over by the technology to identify the origins of our ancestors, but we don’t necessarily know how to respond to our own historical contexts.

This book asks big questions. Who gets to belong in a community and who doesn’t? Which people and relationships are valued and which ones aren’t? Where do you fit in a social hierarchy and what privileges or disadvantages come with it?

The author of this thrilling work of history is Maya Jasanoff – the multi award-winning historian, traveller and biographer. She hails from two ethnicities, two religions, two continents. She will investigate her own genealogical background by situating her ancestry against historical patterns and contexts – and demonstrate how every individual story fits into larger communities.

We cannot pretend ancestry doesn’t play a major role in the way identities are formed, informing deep, if rarely acknowledged assumptions about status, race, ethnicity and nationhood. This book offers a nuanced, brilliant exploration of us – all of us, worldwide, from the origins of humanity up to the origins of generations today.

By: Maya Jasanoff
Imprint: William Collins
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 153mm, Spine: 32mm
Weight: 270g
ISBN: 9780008394356
ISBN 10: 0008394350
Pages: 512
Publication Date: 28 January 2026
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Maya Jasanoff is Coolidge Professor of history at Harvard University. Her first book, Edge of Empire, was awarded the 2005 Duff Cooper Prize and was a book of the year selection in numerous publications including the Economist, Guardian and Sunday Times. Her second, Liberty's Exiles was shortlisted for the 2011 Samuel Johnson Prize (now Baillie Gifford). A 2013 Guggenheim Fellow, Jasanoff won the prestigious 2017 Windham-Campbell Prize for Non-Fiction. Her essays and reviews appear frequently in publications including The Guardian, The New York Times, and The New York Review of Books.

Bargains! PROMOTIONS

Ancestors

Maya Jasanoff

$39.99

Paperback

See Also

Contact Abbeys

Contact Galaxy

Contact Language

Contact Us

About ABBEY'S