Earth: Evolution of a Habitable World

This is an outstanding overview of the history of the Earth from a unique planetary perspective for introductory courses in the earth sciences. The book approaches Earth history as an evolution, encompassing the origin of the cosmos through the inner working of living cells. Earth: Evolution of a Habitable World tells how the Earth has come to its present state, why it differs from its neighboring planets, what life's place is in Earth's history, how humanity affects the processes that make our planet livable, and contemplates human influences in the context of natural changes on Earth. This book brings a fresh perspective to the study of the Earth for students who wish to learn how our planet evolved to its present form.

Jonathan I. Lunine is the David C. Duncan Professor in the Physical Sciences at Cornell University. His research interests center broadly on planetary origin and evolution, in our solar system and around other stars. He works as an interdisciplinary scientist on the Cassini mission to Saturn and on the James Webb Space Telescope, and is also a co-investigator on the Juno mission which launched for Jupiter in August 2011. Dr Lunine is the author of over 230 scientific papers and besides the first edition of this book (Cambridge University Press, 1999), he has also written Astrobiology: A Multidisciplinary Approach (Pearson Addison-Wesley, 2005). He is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Geophysical Union.