Science & Math
Nature & Ecology
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A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth: 4.6 Billion Years in 12 Pithy Chapters
"[A]n exuberant romp through evolution, like a modern-day Willy Wonka of genetic space. Gee's grand tour enthusiastically details the narrative underlying life's erratic and often whimsical exploration of biological form and function." ―Adrian Woolfson,The Washington Post
In the tradition of Richard Dawkins, Bill Bryson, and Simon Winchester―An entertaining and uniquely informed narration of Life's life story.
In the beginning, Earth was an inhospitably alien place―in constant chemical flux, covered with churning seas, crafting its landscape through incessant volcanic eruptions. Amid all this tumult and disaster, life began. The earliest living things were no more than membranes stretched across microscopic gaps in rocks, where boiling hot jets of mineral-rich water gushed out from cracks in the ocean floor.
Although these membranes were leaky, the environment within them became different from the raging maelstrom beyond. These havens of order slowly refined the generation of energy, using it to form membrane-bound bubbles that were mostly-faithful copies of their parents―a foamy lather of soap-bubble cells standing as tiny clenched fists, defiant against the lifeless world. Life on this planet has continued in much the same way for millennia, adapting to literally every conceivable setback that living organisms could encounter and thriving, from these humblest beginnings to the thrilling and unlikely story of ourselves.
In A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth, Henry Gee zips through the last 4.6 billion years with infectious enthusiasm and intellectual rigor. Drawing on the very latest scientific understanding and writing in a clear, accessible style, he tells an enlightening tale of survival and persistence that illuminates the delicate balance within which life has always existed.
In the tradition of Richard Dawkins, Bill Bryson, and Simon Winchester―An entertaining and uniquely informed narration of Life's life story.
In the beginning, Earth was an inhospitably alien place―in constant chemical flux, covered with churning seas, crafting its landscape through incessant volcanic eruptions. Amid all this tumult and disaster, life began. The earliest living things were no more than membranes stretched across microscopic gaps in rocks, where boiling hot jets of mineral-rich water gushed out from cracks in the ocean floor.
Although these membranes were leaky, the environment within them became different from the raging maelstrom beyond. These havens of order slowly refined the generation of energy, using it to form membrane-bound bubbles that were mostly-faithful copies of their parents―a foamy lather of soap-bubble cells standing as tiny clenched fists, defiant against the lifeless world. Life on this planet has continued in much the same way for millennia, adapting to literally every conceivable setback that living organisms could encounter and thriving, from these humblest beginnings to the thrilling and unlikely story of ourselves.
In A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth, Henry Gee zips through the last 4.6 billion years with infectious enthusiasm and intellectual rigor. Drawing on the very latest scientific understanding and writing in a clear, accessible style, he tells an enlightening tale of survival and persistence that illuminates the delicate balance within which life has always existed.
Editorial Reviews
"With authority, humor, and detail, Gee, a paleontologist and senior editor of Nature, traces the progression of life on earth from its initial stirrings...readers will find this eye-opening book compelling for years to come."
―Booklist (starred)
"A lively, lyrical history."
―Nature
"[Gee] takes the reader on an exuberant romp through evolution, like a modern-day Willy Wonka of genetic space."
―Adrian Woolfson, Washington Post
"Gee finds beauty in adversity in this eloquent account of how life evolved on Earth....Action-packed and full of facts, this well-told tale will delight lay readers."
―Publishers Weekly
"Readers should be chastened at his conclusion, shared by most scientists, that Homo sapiens is making its habitat―the Earth―progressively less habitable and will become extinct in a few thousand years. Gee writes lucid, accessible prose."
―Kirkus
"A dazzling, beguiling story told at an exhilarating pace...[a] hugely enjoyable page turner."
―Literary Review
"[Gee] plunges us back in time but also casts us back to a juvenile state of wonder. If you're prone to fleeting moments in the midst of daily tasks in which you stop to question how all this precious life came to be, the answers can be found conveniently packed within these pages."
―Geographical
"Henry Gee's whistle-stop account of the story of life (and death ― lots of death) on Earth is both fun and informative. Even better, it goes beyond the natural human inclination to see ourselves as special and puts us in our proper place in the cosmic scheme of things."
―John Gribbin, author of The Scientists and In Search of Schrodinger's Cat
"This is now the best book available about the huge changes in our planet and its living creatures, over the billions of years of the Earth's existence. Continents have merged and broken up; massive volcanic eruptions have repeatedly reset the clock of evolution; temperatures...
―Booklist (starred)
"A lively, lyrical history."
―Nature
"[Gee] takes the reader on an exuberant romp through evolution, like a modern-day Willy Wonka of genetic space."
―Adrian Woolfson, Washington Post
"Gee finds beauty in adversity in this eloquent account of how life evolved on Earth....Action-packed and full of facts, this well-told tale will delight lay readers."
―Publishers Weekly
"Readers should be chastened at his conclusion, shared by most scientists, that Homo sapiens is making its habitat―the Earth―progressively less habitable and will become extinct in a few thousand years. Gee writes lucid, accessible prose."
―Kirkus
"A dazzling, beguiling story told at an exhilarating pace...[a] hugely enjoyable page turner."
―Literary Review
"[Gee] plunges us back in time but also casts us back to a juvenile state of wonder. If you're prone to fleeting moments in the midst of daily tasks in which you stop to question how all this precious life came to be, the answers can be found conveniently packed within these pages."
―Geographical
"Henry Gee's whistle-stop account of the story of life (and death ― lots of death) on Earth is both fun and informative. Even better, it goes beyond the natural human inclination to see ourselves as special and puts us in our proper place in the cosmic scheme of things."
―John Gribbin, author of The Scientists and In Search of Schrodinger's Cat
"This is now the best book available about the huge changes in our planet and its living creatures, over the billions of years of the Earth's existence. Continents have merged and broken up; massive volcanic eruptions have repeatedly reset the clock of evolution; temperatures...
Readers Top Reviews
CBSx0/AB\x0Knghtread
As the title of the book suggests, this crams the essence of 4,600 million years of the Earth's history into less than 200 pages. It is a wonderful effort at compression and summary. Especially in the early parts of the book, and the 'eons' most remote in the past, all the names of slimes, algae, cells and the earliest creatures are a bit alien and daunting. From Chapter 7 on, and the dawn of the dinosaurs, the material becomes vaguely familiar and thus easier to get a 'handle' on. It's the sheer scale of geological time that challenges comprehension. At the highest level of the temporal hierarchy are the 'eons' (I think this would be 'aeons' to the classicists). The 4.6 billion years are covered by four of these. Each eon contains a number of 'eras' of 100-200 million years each, of which the most recent (and current) is the Cenozoic Era. Eras in turn contain 'periods', of a trifling 20-30 million years or so. Ours is the Quarternary period, and it has run for the last 2.5 million years. Within the period is the 'epoch' -- the Pleistocene, followed by the (current) Holocene. The Holocene started about 11,000 years ago and contains our approximately 5,000 years of recorded history. The said recorded history is therefore about one one-millionth of terrestrial history. Even the earliest examples of Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens are found no more than 300,000 or so years ago. The author includes a useful series of timeline diagrams that allowed me to summarise this. But it only helps somewhat. We see a period of 8 million years described as "slightly later". The dinosaurs disappeared 65 million years ago -- and that's like yesterday in the scheme of things. For the first 2.5 billion years, there was no cellular life on Earth at all. Perhaps most striking -- and, in a way, amusing -- is that the current "human-caused carbon spike will be high but very narrow -- perhaps too narrow to be detectable in the very long term." In 250 million years, it is almost certain that no trace of our existence will be detectable. Our carbon 'blip' is incomparably smaller than any of the repeated cycles of warming and cooling in the long past. All life will be extinct within a billion years from now as the Sun expands and possibly engulfs our planet. Mr Gee's text is really a summary that refers the reader onward to a comprehensive Notes section full of suggestions for further reading. As such, it is brilliant. One apparent error did cause me to flounder a bit in my efforts to put structure and hierarchy on things: the Cenozoic is listed as an 'era' in the diagram at the end of chapter 2 but as an 'eon' in chapters 9 and 10. Never mind. The book is a great and engagingly written summary of history and evolution across geological time. It does as well as it is possible to do in terms of making somewhat comprehensible the enormous span ...
AnnabelleJohn Oddie
I wish I had not read one of the official reviewers who said the book is suitable read for all. It’s probably unfair of me to review a book which I have not read. However I feel obliged to give others the benefit of my mistake. I have a 14 yr old grandson who is passionate about this stuff so , having read about it in The Times , I checked it out and decided to buy it for him. I knew as soon as it arrived he would not like it. There are no illustrations so nothing to appeal visually. Too late I read the recommended reading age is 18yrs. But it’s not just about reading age is it ? I’m considerably older but find the look of the book decidedly off putting. I’m obliged to give it stars in order to pass on this information. I promise I will review my paltry 3 stars if I get round to reading it! Maybe it will be the best thing I’ve ever read.
M. Sabes
This is a fabulous (very) brief history or how we came to be here and beyond. Crammed full of very detailed information and yet easy and enjoyable to read. It opened up my eyes to a myriad of information about which I had very little idea. And yet, at no time was I overwhelmed by the content.
Marg
Gee raises matters to do with home sapiens and our reign on earth I have not encountered before. I recommend others also consider his view that we will be but a thin layer of dust in geological history and that one day all species on earth will be gone. I'm inclined to believe him. My only criticism of this remarkable book is that it ends too abruptly.
Cromagnon1952algo41R
A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth by Henry Gee is an often interesting but flawed attempt at doing what it states it is planning to do: provide a brief history of life on earth. There are some fascinating chapters and some chapters that, despite the title, run on too long. Things start to get interesting when the fish develop backbones, but the chapters about slime and trilobites just lost me. There were two areas of personal interest that I thought could have been developed more fully. First, the Neanderthals are given too brief coverage. Fortunately, I recently bought (on Amazon) and read Rebecca Wrass Sykes’ “Kindred Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art,” which fills in this deficit. Second, not enough coverage is given to the peopling of the Americas. Again, fortunately, I recently bought (on Amazon) and read Jennifer Raff’s, “Origin A Genetic History of the Americas,” which again fills in the gap. Personally, I think Gee goes off the deep end when he moves from history to speculation about the future. But perhaps the biggest problem I had with the book is that the author ranges from reporting undebated facts, to likely extrapolations from existing knowledge, to wild speculation without any indication of where a given “fact” falls on this spectrum and without any acknowledgement that a given statement is not beyond debate. The key to understanding what is going on is buried in two end notes. See endnote 4 to chapter 1: “As I am telling this tale more as a story than as a scientific exercise, some of the things I’ll say have more evidential support than others.” And endnote 17 to chapter 12: “I should say from this point onwards, most of what I say is conjecture, or what scientists call Making Stuff Up. As someone once said, prediction is very hard, especially about the future.” These two endnotes probably should have been part of the text of a preface. All this being said, I would still recommend the book. It is short after all and the bad puns and bad jokes can be easily ignored.
