Fifty thousand years ago, on an island in Indonesia, a prehistoric man used red ochre to paint a pig on a cave wall. Around the same time, in what is now Europe, another man pulled a lump of coal from a fire and sketched four galloping horses. It was as if a light had been turned on in the minds of Homo sapiens. And this light, compelling humans to capture the image of the world they observed, helped our species better understand it and begin to thrive.

John-Paul Stonard's book is a panoramic history of art and a comparative anthropological study of creativity across cultures. The author traces the diverse changes in artistic forms over the centuries. "Creation" explores key works of art, from Paleolithic cave paintings to contemporary conceptual art. It is a story of connections. Stonard demonstrates that great Western artists and their counterparts in other parts of the world were driven by the same forces. But above all, it is a book about how creativity is "part of what it means to be human."