 Brilliant's Audio presents the unabridged recording of The Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan, performed by J.D. Jackson and Ann Drehan. This is Ann Drehan, Emmy and Peabody award-winning writer-producer of the Cosmos television series, creative director of NASA's Voyager interstellar message, as well as Carl Sagan's long-time professional collaborator and widow. It is the 40th anniversary of the publication of Carl's Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Dragons of Eden. The genesis of the work was a lecture Carl prepared honoring the memory of Jacob Brunowski, author of the classic history of humankind, The Ascent of Man. In that lecture, Carl first presented his fundamental premise about the brain, that it's working, what is sometimes called mind, is a consequence of human anatomy and physiology, and nothing more, a conviction that I share. Information was first stored in life's genetic structure. As life evolved, information migrated and was stored in brains as well, until humans learned to store information outside ourselves in written form. But for thousands of years that knowledge was available to few. It was not until the invention of the printing press, only a little more than 400 years ago, that human knowledge became available to a wider audience, and no one, in my personal view, ever mounted a more vigorous campaign to disseminate the gifts of knowledge than Carl did throughout his life. In an interview on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson promoting the publication of this book, Carl had something extraordinary to say about books. He said, the whole idea of what happens when you read a book, I find absolutely stunning. You open it up and inside your head is the voice of someone speaking who may have been dead 3,000 years and yet there he is talking directly to you. What a magical thing a book is. And now, in addition to the book, is the audio book. A tool that harnesses listening. Sample complete. Ready to continue?