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A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
"Extraordinary. . . . Anyone with the slightest interest in biology should read this book."--The New York Times Book Review
"A marvelous museum of the past four billion years on earth--capacious, jammed with treasures, full of learning and wide-eyed wonder."--The Boston Globe
From its origins on the still-forming planet to the recent emergence of Homo sapiens--one of the world's leading paleontologists offers an absorbing account of how and why life on earth developed as it did. Interlacing the tale of his own adventures in the field with vivid descriptions of creatures who emerged and disappeared in the long march of geologic time, Richard Fortey sheds light upon a fascinating array of evolutionary wonders, mysteries, and debates. Brimming with wit, literary style, and the joy of discovery, this is an indispensable book that will delight the general reader and the scientist alike.
"A drama bolder and more sweeping than Gone with the Wind . . . a pleasure to read."--Science
"A beautifully written and structured work . . . packed with lucid expositions of science."--Natural History
"Extraordinary. . . . Anyone with the slightest interest in biology should read this book."--The New York Times Book Review
"A marvelous museum of the past four billion years on earth--capacious, jammed with treasures, full of learning and wide-eyed wonder."--The Boston Globe
From its origins on the still-forming planet to the recent emergence of Homo sapiens--one of the world's leading paleontologists offers an absorbing account of how and why life on earth developed as it did. Interlacing the tale of his own adventures in the field with vivid descriptions of creatures who emerged and disappeared in the long march of geologic time, Richard Fortey sheds light upon a fascinating array of evolutionary wonders, mysteries, and debates. Brimming with wit, literary style, and the joy of discovery, this is an indispensable book that will delight the general reader and the scientist alike.
"A drama bolder and more sweeping than Gone with the Wind . . . a pleasure to read."--Science
"A beautifully written and structured work . . . packed with lucid expositions of science."--Natural History
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
36 of 37 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
British paleontologist Richard Fortey has written a marvelously concise and erudite historical synopsis of terrestrial life from around 4,000 million years ago, when meteors seeded the planet with the elements, most importantly carbon, that allowed for the evolution of organic molecules, to around 25,000 years ago, when Cro-Magnon Homo sapiens founded interior decorating by painting animals on the walls of his cave living-rooms. Fortey's account necessarily leaves off with the beginning of recorded history. (Blessedly, the life forms "Benifer" and Michael Jackson fail to appear in the narrative even once.)
The author hits the high points, including the evolution of single cells, the formation of bacterial colonies, the initiation of chlorophyll-based photosynthesis (that ultimately charged the atmosphere with oxygen), the specialization of cells into tissues, the population of the seas, the advance onto land, the greening of the earth, the separation of ancient Pangaea into today's separate continents, the Age of Dinosaurs, the advent of live-birth from wombs, the ascendancy of mammals, and finally the evolution of Man. For me, the most interesting chapter was on the apocalyptic cataclysm which ended the Age of Dinosaurs, i.e. the asteroid which apparently slammed into the Mexican Yucatan Peninsula creating the Chicxulub Crater. The volume also includes several photo sections that provide an adequate visual summary of the text.
The time spans of Fortey's tale are almost beyond mental grasp. For instance, at one point the author states that tool making by hominids began about 2.5 million years ago. Yet the style of the tools, the "technology" if you will, then remained virtually unchanged for the next million years. After witnessing the dizzying pace of technological advancement just during the span of my own life, this stagnation for such an incomprehensible length of time is mind-boggling.
I wish I had but a fraction of Fortey's knowledge of our world. LIFE should be required reading in every high school science program.
27 of 28 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
It is refreshing to read a book like this: a scientific book for the layman, but one that does not take for granted that its readers are ignorant or stupid. This is not a book for scientists or specialists, but for ordinary people, scientifically literate but only to some degree, who are curious about about the origin and evolution of Life, who ever wondered how was Earth like in the first years of its history, and in later periods, when our planet was still an alien place. This book does just that, taking us to sweltering Carboniferous forests, to oceans teeming with life and deserted land, to landscapes inhabited by strange animals, the like of which exist no more. It explains us how, step by tiny step, life changed the face of the Earth. I was not bothered by the personal references or apparent digressions; all these served as examples to illustrate different points. I was indeed bothered however by the lack of charts. For example, an chart illustrating the different geological eras would have been useful: not all of us know by heart the exact order of the geological periods, and sometimes it is easy to get lost. I ended up copying such a chart from an encyclopedia and keeping the slip of paper inside the book, for reference. It would also have been interesting to have charts (like the cladistic charts of which there are some examples), illustrating how different species are related.
21 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
If you want to be swept off your feet by the great story that is life on earth, this is the book to read. Fortey is a scientist with the relatively rare gift of making not only scientific facts but also the romance of science accesible to the layperson. His tone is conversational, his language clear and his style humourous. He starts off with an entertaining anecdotal chapter on how he himself became involved in paleonthology and from there jumps back some 4 billion years, to when it all began. I thoroughly enjoyed immersing myself in this book. The only criticism is that the somewhat crummy black and white photographs are rather meagre as illustrations. I would have liked more and better pictures of all the wondrous life forms that Fortey describes with so much panache. Still, in spite of this the book is worth five stars to me.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
A wonderdul and life-enhancing read
It's a daunting prospect to cope with a book that purports to explain all about life from its very origins through to the present day. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Michael Bernard
The origins of life - what we think.
This is a well written and professional piece of work. Unfortunately - to me at least - it seems to expose the guesswork involved with this type of pre-historical study. Read more
Published 20 months ago by KeithBarry
Life: by Richard Fortey
I like this book, in spite of the author's propensity for analogy and digression. My first impression was that he was just padding it out: perhaps, I thought, this veritable... Read more
Published on 15 April 2010 by R. Rowland
The Story of Life
A fascinating text and a beautiful production by The Folio Society. What more could you ask for?
Published on 26 Oct 2008 by Book Nut
...From the beginning
Fortey sounds like he needed no research for this. He simply began writing what he knew and carried on. It just happenned to include 4 billion years of life! Read more
Published on 9 April 2008 by R. Davies
Absolutelius Superbersaurus
Ok, bit of a foible of mine but i normally get wound up when authors start telling their life story in a history book but here its well judged, funny and adds to the sense of joy... Read more
Published on 4 Dec 2007 by M. Notman
What a wonderful "Life"
Science is cold.
Precise.
Logical.
At least that's the image we get most of the time when we read about science. What's usually missing is a sense of the passion. Read more
Published on 25 Mar 1999
Fantastic
Finally a book that ties it all together. For those interested in the myriad of sciences that make up our world this book is a must read. Read more
Published on 12 Mar 1999
More stuff, less fluff please.
Fortey is surprisingly adept at constructing an elegant English sentence. And he makes this clear to the reader over and over and over again. Read more
Published on 12 Feb 1999
DRY BUT INTERESTING EXPLINATION OF ORIGIN OF LIFE
OVERVIEW OF THE CURRENT SCIENTIFIC UNDERSTANDING OF THE ORIGIN OF LIFE AND THE SUPPORTING FOSSIL EVIDENCE FOR THE ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES. Read more
Published on 28 Sep 1998
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