num_pages: 280
description: The Royal Society's Science Book of the Year[A]n exuberant romp through evolution like a modern-day Willy Wonka of genetic space. Gees grand tour enthusiastically details the narrative underlying lifes erratic and often whimsical exploration of biological form and function. Adrian Woolfson The Washington PostIn the tradition of Richard Dawkins Bill Bryson and Simon WinchesterAn entertaining and uniquely informed narration of Life's life story.In the beginning Earth was an inhospitably alien placein constant chemical flux covered with churning seas crafting its landscape through incessant volcanic eruptions. Amid all this tumult and disaster life began. The earliest living things were no more than membranes stretched across microscopic gaps in rocks where boiling hot jets of mineral-rich water gushed out from cracks in the ocean floor.Although these membranes were leaky the environment within them became different from the raging maelstrom beyond. These havens of order slowly refined the generation of energy using it to form membrane-bound bubbles that were mostly-faithful copies of their parentsa foamy lather of soap-bubble cells standing as tiny clenched fists defiant against the lifeless world. Life on this planet has continued in much the same way for millennia adapting to literally every conceivable setback that living organisms could encounter and thriving from these humblest beginnings to the thrilling and unlikely story of ourselves.In A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth  Henry Gee zips through the last 4.6 billion years with infectious enthusiasm and intellectual rigor. Drawing on the very latest scientific understanding and writing in a clear accessible style he tells an enlightening tale of survival and persistence that illuminates the delicate balance within which life has always existed.
language: English
title: A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth: 4.6 Billion Years in 12 Pithy Chapters
publisher: St. Martin's Press