Shaking the Tree: Readings from Nature in the History of Life

Gee, Henry (editor)

ISBN 10: 0226284972 / ISBN 13: 9780226284972

Published by University of Chicago Press, 2000

About this Item

411 pages. First paperback edition (first printing). A fine copy in wrappers (paperback). Nature has published news about the history of life ever since its first issue in 1869, in which T. H. Huxley (Darwin's bulldog) wrote about Triassic dinosaurs. In recent years, the field has enjoyed a tremendous flowering due to new investigative techniques drawn from cladistics (a revolutionary method for charting evolutionary relationships) and molecular biology. Shaking the Tree brings together nineteen review articles written for Nature over the past decade by many of the major figures in paleontology and evolution, from Stephen Jay Gould to Simon Conway Morris. Each article is brief, accessible, and opinionated, providing shoot from the hip accounts of the latest news and debates. Topics covered include major extinction events, homeotic genes and body plans, the origin and evolution of the primates, and reconstructions of phylogenetic trees for a wide variety of groups. The editor, Henry Gee, gives new commentary and updated references. Shaking the Tree is a one-stop resource for engaging overviews of the latest research in the history of life on Earth.

Seller Inventory # 263537

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Shaking the Tree: Readings from Nature in the History of Life
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication Date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0226284972
• ISBN 13: 9780226284972
• Binding: Trade Paperback
• Edition: First Edition.
• Weight: 24.01 ounces
• Seller catalogs:
  • Science
  • Biology

About this title

Synopsis

Nature has published news about the history of life ever since its first issue in 1869, in which T. H. Huxley ("Darwin's bulldog") wrote about Triassic dinosaurs. In recent years, the field has enjoyed a tremendous flowering due to new investigative techniques drawn from cladistics (a revolutionary method for charting evolutionary relationships) and molecular biology.

Shaking the Tree brings together nineteen review articles written for Nature over the past decade by many of the major figures in paleontology and evolution, from Stephen Jay Gould to Simon Conway Morris. Each article is brief, accessible, and opinionated, providing "shoot from the hip" accounts of the latest news and debates. Topics covered include major extinction events, homeotic genes and body plans, the origin and evolution of the primates, and reconstructions of phylogenetic trees for a wide variety of groups. The editor, Henry Gee, gives new commentary and updated references.

Shaking the Tree is a one-stop resource for engaging overviews of the latest research in the history of life on Earth.

About the Author

Henry Gee is a senior editor at Nature. He is the author of Before the Backbone: Views on the Origin of the Vertebrates and In Search of Deep Time: Beyond the Fossil Record to a New History of Life the latter also published by the University of Chicago Press.