 Harper Collins presents The Wolf Within The astonishing evolution of the wolf into man's best friend by Brian Sykes read by Charles Armstrong Preface This book is about how wolves became dogs a remarkable transition. It ranks as one of the most important, yet least appreciated events in the long history of not one but two species. The wolf changed from a highly successful and independent carnivore into a highly successful yet completely dependent vassal with a bewildering array of different forms. The second species is of course ourselves. All the evidence which we will examine in this book traces the start of the transition to about 40,000 years ago somewhere in Eastern Europe. Wolves had been living there and in all of the world's circumpolar regions for millions of years. Our homo sapiens ancestors were much more recent players, having newly arrived from Africa only a few tens of thousands of years ago. The scene was set for the encounter that changed the world. The location was a steep-sided river gorge in the Carpathian Mountains in what is now Romania. There is abundant evidence of human occupation in the region from the time of the Neanderthals to the arrival of our homo sapiens ancestors, and there is a good fossil record of the fauna to colour in the details. I hardly need add that the narrative of this meeting found in chapter one is embellished with a generous helping of my own imagination, which I hesitated to include until I read Man Meets Dog by Conrad Lorenz, the Nobel Prize-winning biologist. He imagined a similar scene, though in a different location and with different players. I hope you find it evocative. In 2009 the charismatic actor Mickey Rourke was nominated for an Academy Award and won a Golden Globe for his portrayal of over-the-hill fighter Randy the Ram Robinson, attempting to make a comeback in the film The Wrestler. The striking parallel between Rourke, the fading actor, and his character, so it said, was the reason behind the popularity of his nominations. In an interview with television host Barbara Walters to coincide with the film's release, Rourke said of his own past, I sort of self-destructed and everything came out about fourteen years ago or so. The wife had left, the career was over, the money was not announced, the dogs were there when no one else was there. Asked by Walters if he had considered suicide, he responded, Yeah, I didn't want to be here, but I didn't want to kill myself, I just wanted to push a button and disappear. Sample complete. Ready to continue?