This book details the natural and cultural history of the apple, using DNA evidence, from its origins in China, along the Silk Road to Europe and onto the Americas and Australia. From Adam and Eve, to the ancient Egyptians, Romans, the Battle of Hastings and Newton’s Law of Gravity, the apple has played a key role in human culture.

Although we may often think of the apple as quintessentially English, its origins lie in China. The apple (the Malus genus) arose in the Tertiary period (5.3 – 1.8 million years ago) in southern China and spread through a continuous corridor of temperate forest as far as western Europe. This book details the natural and cultural history of the apple, using DNA evidence, from its origins in China, along the Silk Road to Europe and onto the Americas and Australia.