A Brief History of Earth: Four Billion Years in Eight Chapters

This is perhaps the best popular science book I have read in the past 5 years. The topic, the links between the evolution of earth's geology and biosphere, is one that has not been often covered, the writing is clear and the style (for me, at least) is very congenial.Some might regard this as very basic, while others find it dense and overladen with facts. However, the author, an expert in this subject (with a long career at Harvard to his credit), does a remarkable job in presenting a complex series of topics. He does so with great brevity with only the minimum of detail needed to construct a coherent picture.The organization of the book, "4 billion years in eight chapters," takes the the form of an elegant sequence of chapters entitled "Chemical Earth," "Physical Earth," "Biological Earth," "Oxygen Earth," "Animal Earth," "Green Earth," "Catastrophic Earth," and "Human Earth."These develop the motivating theme, our existence on earth and the biosphere we depend on is in critical danger. Perhaps to many this message has become dull with repetition, but Andrew Knoll's treatment of it is fresh and convincing. As he quotes Baba Dioum in the Prologue, ""we will conserve only what we love, and we will love only what we understand.""A Brief History of Earth" is a heroic effort by Dr. Knoll to promote a more complete understanding of the planet we live on.

Great introduction to such a mind bending subject.

Maybe a bit too brief, just enough to whet the appetite, so call it an appetizer and go on for the full course in Earth by Richard Fortney. Enjoy. She's a Great Planet to call Home.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book primarily because of the great storytelling skills that Andrew Knoll has. The subject, if delivered pedantically, might have been very boring. However, Andrew does a great job in keeping the information relevant and fascinating. I also learned a great deal on the way. For example, I did not realize that the increase in the oxygen level in the air was not significant after the cyanobacteria did its magic. I was under the impression that the molecular oxygen level rapidly rose in a few millenia to the current level.The best chapter was the last one. The author does a great job of conveying the importance of taking action against global warming, tying the story back to the subject he covered in previous chapters. While doing that, he does not subject the deniers to shame or treat them condescendingly. I believe that's our best bet forward. If we try to shame the climate change deniers, all we will land up doing is having them put up a wall and deny what they see even more strongly.

As a layman interested in stuff like human origins. cosmology and the history of the planet, I got really excited about this book. What I believed I was buying was a detailed account of the history of our planet through the various eons, hadean onwards. Stuff like snowball Earth and especially the forming and breakup of continents. You will find all this in the book but its not center stage, the evolution of life is. Its hard to criticize and I really don't mean to, but the geological history of the planet was a side show to the history of life. I expected it the other way round. I am still waiting for that definitive book on the geological history of Earth with the evolution of life as the side show. Just a bit disappointed but certainly not in buying the book. Lastly the treatment of climate change at the end was exceptional in my view, calm rational and so well written, none of the depressing drama one reads everywhere yet, in this treatment, very compelling, a great job

My headline sums it up quite well. I was completely enthralled by this book , with the author's well written prose describing early Earth history, the origins of life, plate tectonics, volcanic activity and extinctions. And then, after the Cretaceous extinction of the Dinosaurs, the content of the book skips 66 million years to present day Earth and goes on and on about how Humans are destroying the planet with fossil fuels.To me, all of the content in this book about CO2 and global warming directly conflicts with the content about the Permian extinction and the Triassic Jurassic boundary extinction. The author clearly and concisely lays out how massive volcanic activity destroyed %90 of life on this planet, by spewing noxious gasses including CO2 into the atmosphere, choking out existing life and raising the temperature of the planet as well. But here's the thing, the author also points out that this volcanic activity, lasted for millions of years at a constant rate. The Earth was a hellscape of lava and black clouds filling the atmosphere, for millions of years at a time.Yes, Humans are destroying the planet in our own way by deforestation and especially pollution, I would never argue against that. But to blame a mere 130 years of burning coal and oil (and advancing the Human condition incredibly as a result) is going to lead the planet to extinction is patently ridiculous and directly contradicts the first half of the book.If you're a deep climate change believer in this way, you will enjoy the entirety of the book and may rate it 4-5 stars instead of my 3, which I rate the first half a 5, with the second half a 2.

This is a very clearly written narrative about our earth, our home, and what we need to do to preserve her. It lays out the prehistory and history of the changes our world had already experienced and spells out recurring cycles, but clearly shows that the human influence is accelerating the natural cycles of climate change. Is it already too late? We had better hope not.

This was a good book covering a very broad topic in a concise and readable format. Mostly historical but also some forward looking observations.

A clear, engaging, thorough yet concise review of Earth History, explaining how and why biology and geology are intrinsically and causally linked together.A must read to understand how we got here and where we are going.

A very good summary of the history of the planet, up to date with a good index and list of references. But it has no less than 22 completely blank pages and a further 13 nearly blank, coupled with wide margins and generous line spacing. This publication could have been made pocket-sized and even more suitable for my handluggage by using a more condensed format. And been more planet-friendly!

A concise and comprehensive overview. Highly recommendable.

The media could not be loaded. Very nice book can read by all the age group