Items related to The History of Life: A Very Short Introduction

The History of Life: A Very Short Introduction - Softcover

Benton, Michael J.

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9780199226320: The History of Life: A Very Short Introduction
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0199226326 ISBN 13: 9780199226320
Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2008

Synopsis

Here is the extraordinary story of the unfolding of life on Earth, told by Michael J. Benton, a world-renowned authority on biodiversity. Ranging over four billion years, Benton weaves together the latest findings on fossils, earth history, evolutionary biology, and many other fields to highlight the great leaps that enabled life to evolve from microbe to human--big breakthroughs that made whole new ways of life possible--including cell division and multicellularity, hard skeletons, the move to land, the origin of forests, the move to the air. He describes the mass extinctions, especially the Permian, which obliterated 90% of life, and he sheds light on the origins of human beings, and of the many hominids that went before us. He ends by pointing out that studying the past helps us to predict the future: what happens if the atmosphere warms by 5 degrees? What happens if we destroy much of the biodiversity on Earth? These things have happened before, Benton notes. We need only look to the distant past to know the future of life on Earth.

About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.

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About the Author

Michael J. Benton is Head of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol. He has written some fifty books, ranging from children's dinosaur and palaeontology books to standard textbooks.

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Publisher
Oxford University Press
Publication date
2008
Language
English
ISBN 10 
0199226326
ISBN 13 
9780199226320
Binding
Paperback
Edition number
1
Number of pages
192
Rating
  • 3.87 out of 5 stars
    342 ratings by Goodreads