Review by Choice Review
Gee (Nature magazine) has authored numerous popular titles on aspects of evolutionary history and the fossil record: Across the Bridge (CH, Feb'19, 56-2357), The Accidental Species (CH, Apr'14, 51-4424), and In Search of Deep Time (CH, Jul'00, 37-6287), to name a few. Here, he depicts the origin of all life, the development of invertebrates, then vertebrates, followed by those organisms that moved onto land because they could lay eggs. Next Gee reviews diversification of the reptiles, the origin of flight, the takeover of mammals following the demise of the dinosaurs, and, finally, the origin of the human species. In chapter 10, he describes the important development of Homo erectus into Homo sapiens and the spread of that species over all the Earth in chapter 11. Finally, the extinction of humans and the extinction of life on Earth and the planet itself are portrayed in chapter 12. Assuming that Homo sapiens will be responsible for the sixth extinction, Gee advises, however, that the numbers of species lost so far is far less than those lost in the first five extinctions. This text is readable, although genus and species names lack keys to their Latin meanings. Lay readers interested in the origin and diversification of life on Earth will enjoy the book. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers. --Larry Thomas Spencer, emeritus, Plymouth State University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Everchanging, Earth continuously remodels itself. From its fiery beginnings 4.6 billion years ago to a water planet, a single landmass, a giant snowball, and beyond, the planet managed to support life as it found its way amid "tumult and disaster" and in environments both hostile and temperate. With authority, humor, and detail, Gee, a paleontologist and senior editor of Nature, traces the progression of life on earth from its initial stirrings. Aligning the evolution of life (and corresponding mass extinctions) to climate and chemical changes and to such planetary forces as asteroids, volcanoes, and the breakup of a supercontinent, Gee reinforces the idea that life must adapt or perish. Early chapters focus on the first life forms. Dinosaurs and mammals are covered in the middle chapters, while later chapters examine apes, hominins, Homo erectus, and Homo sapiens. Throughout, readers are presented with a foreboding, overarching timeline. We exist at time 0, or "Now." The next mark is "Extinction of Life on Earth." As life approaches its inevitable end, Gee speculates, a remarkable "single living entity" may dominate in a world that is, ironically, starving for carbon dioxide. Although, as Gee hypothesizes, humans may only have a few thousand years left, readers will find this eye-opening book compelling for years to come.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Gee (The Accidental Species), a paleontologist and senior editor at the science journal Nature, finds beauty in adversity in this eloquent account of how life evolved on Earth. Gee explains how varied life forms rose to the challenges of changing sea levels, "world-spanning" ice ages, and volcano-induced extinctions, as in the Permian period when the world became "a cauldron of magma." He describes how the giant Pteranodon "cruised the seas... winging between the young and divergent continents" and how ancient mosses and liverworts crept onto barren, wind-scoured coasts that were "as dry and lifeless as the surface of the moon." Early lichen life forms, he explains, were "forged in fire" and "hardened in ice" as they adapted, and Gee spotlights nature's ingenuity as plants sprouted up and creatures began to crawl. Early conifers, for example, engineered a clever response to unfavorable growing conditions (the seed), and the small, lizardlike Westlothiana helped vertebrates make the tricky transition from the sea to arid land with a newly designed "private pond" (the egg). Gee is also a gleeful guide to the lives of early humans who, he notes, responded to ever-harsher living conditions "with larger brains and increasing stores of fat." Action-packed and full of facts, this well-told tale will delight lay readers. (Nov.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Podcast cohosts Cham, a scientist-turned-cartoonist (PHD Comics), and University of California, Irvine, professor Whiteson address Frequently Asked Questions About the Universe, from space and time to gravity, black holes, and the origins of everything. Winner of Lowell Thomas and Western Press Association honors, Fox blends memories of growing up on a remote Maine island and an explanation of how and why we are facing The Last Winter, with snow cover and the length of the snowy season shrinking precipitously in the last 50 years (35,000-copy first printing). Senior editor at Nature, Gee takes us back to Earth's roiling early seas as the bubbles that became life began forming, that strides us through A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth (60,000-copy first printing). Professor of medicine in the University of Michigan's Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care, Han gives us Breathing Lessons, explaining how the lungs work as she highlights their role as the body's first line of defense. Uganda's first Fridays for Future protestor and a leading climate justice crusader, Nakate blends proclamation and the personal in A Bigger Picture, arguing that while her community suffers disproportionately from climate change, activists from Africa and the global south are often not heard in the din of white voices. As one of five international delegates at the World Economic Forum, she was even cropped from an AP photo (40,000-copy first printing).
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
The title tells it all. Nature senior editor Gee spends only two pages on the beginning of Earth, when a cloud of dust circling the sun coalesced into a planet about 4.6 billion years ago. The infant Earth was molten rock that eventually cooled enough for atmospheric water to condense into oceans, and it's amazing, as the author rightly notes, how quickly it appeared--perhaps 100 million years after the planet formed. Early Earth lacked oxygen, so there was no ozone layer in the upper atmosphere to block the sun's ultraviolet rays, which sterilized everything above the surface of the sea. Consequently, primitive bacteria lived deep in the ocean for at least 1 billion years until some evolved pigments that absorbed these rays to produce sugar. This was photosynthesis. Its fiercely reactive waste product, oxygen, produced the first mass extinction of life that had evolved in its absence. As Gee relates, it was another several billion years before primitive bacteria (prokaryotes) evolved into advanced bacteria (eukaryotes), which accelerated evolution, forming multicellular life forms by 800 million years ago as well as the first animals--sponges. Life moved onto land 500 million years ago and broke its dependence on the sea not through legs (some fish have legs) but with hard-shelled eggs and seeds. Racing through dinosaurs and mammals, Gee introduce apes less than two-thirds into the text and hominins a few pages later. 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. For a primer on evolution, readers might prefer Andrew Knoll's A Brief History of Earth (2021) for one reason: illustrations. Gee writes lucid, accessible prose, but readers of his thorough descriptions of long-extinct creatures or explanations of how body parts evolved will yearn in vain for pictures. A serviceable history of life that one wishes were more comprehensive. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
