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

by Andrew H. Knoll

Overview

Harvard’s acclaimed geologist “charts Earth’s history in accessible style” (AP)

“A sublime chronicle of our planet." –Booklist, STARRED review

How well do you know the ground beneath your feet? 

Odds are, where you’re standing was once cooking under a roiling sea of lava, crushed by a towering sheet of ice, rocked by a nearby meteor strike, or perhaps choked by poison gases, drowned beneath ocean, perched atop a mountain range, or roamed by fearsome monsters. Probably most or even all of the above. 

The story of our home planet and the organisms spread across its surface is far more spectacular than any Hollywood blockbuster, filled with enough plot twists to rival a bestselling thriller. But only recently have we begun to piece together the whole mystery into a coherent narrative. Drawing on his decades of field research and up-to-the-minute understanding of the latest science, renowned geologist Andrew H. Knoll delivers a rigorous yet accessible biography of Earth, charting our home planet's epic 4.6 billion-year story. Placing twenty first-century climate change in deep context, A Brief History of Earth is an indispensable look at where we’ve been and where we’re going.

Features original illustrations depicting Earth history and nearly 50 figures (maps, tables, photographs, graphs).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062853929
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	03/21/2023
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	195,558
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 7.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Andrew H. Knoll is the Fisher Professor of Natural History at Harvard University. His honors include the International Prize for Biology, the Charles Doolittle Walcott and the Mary Clark Thompson Medals of the National Academy of Sciences, the Paleontological Society Medal, and the Wollaston Medal of the Geological Society of London. For nearly two decades he served on the science team for NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover mission. Knoll is also the author of Life on a Young Planet, for which he received the Phi Beta Kappa Book Award in Science.

Table of Contents

Prologue: An Invitation 1

1 Chemical Earth 9

2 Physical Earth 37

3 Biological Earth 61

4 Oxygen Earth 91

5 Animal Earth 113

6 Green Earth 139

7 Catastrophic Earth 169

8 Human Earth 195

Acknowledgments 231

Further Reading 235

Index 251

Editorial Reviews

"Covers the arc of our planet’s history from its earliest formation to the present day in a succinct and deftly-written way."

Forbes

“A fantastic distillation of Earth's history, from one of the world’s leading geologists: Andrew H. Knoll has written an engrossing, witty, and eminently readable romp through our home planet’s 4.5 billion years, from trilobites and dinosaurs to human origins and our rapidly changing modern times.” — Steve Brusatte, New York Times bestselling author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs

"Having spent decades at the forefront of discovery and research, Andrew H. Knoll has been one of our planet's leading scientists. In A Brief History of Earth, Knoll treats us to a 4.6-billion-year detective story revealing the origins and inner workings of our home in the solar system.  In these pages you'll discover something profound: how our past, present, and future are grounded in Planet Earth." — Neil Shubin, author of Your Inner Fish and Some Assembly Required

"Covers the arc of our planet’s history from its earliest formation to the present day in a succinct and deftly-written way." — Forbes

“Charts the planet’s history in accessible style, from its beginning as ‘a small planet accreted out of rocky debris circling a modest young star’ through the development of minerals, geographical formations, atmosphere, and life forms large and small.”  — Associated Press

"Skillfully condenses the history of the Earth. ... An expert primer on the history of everything." — Kirkus Reviews

"A sublime chronicle of our planet’s formation and beginnings, the perhaps unlikely yet awe-inspiring interactions that created life, diverse and abundant, and mass extinctions and recoveries. Knoll skillfully presents the extreme conditions, violence, and delicate fragility that mark the cycles and evolution of our home." — Booklist (starred review)

"The type of book that is sorely needed at this moment in history. ... Knoll assembles facts from a wide variety of fields to tell our planet’s story in a clear and accessible narrative." — Scientific Inquirer

“An eloquent call to action.”  — CNN.com

"In spite of its sweeping scale, the Harvard geologist and natural history professor’s primer not only makes the titular four billion years understandable – his accessible expertise makes it interesting."

— Globe and Mail (Toronto)

From the Publisher

A fantastic distillation of Earth's history, from one of the world’s leading geologists: Andrew H. Knoll has written an engrossing, witty, and eminently readable romp through our home planet’s 4.5 billion years, from trilobites and dinosaurs to human origins and our rapidly changing modern times.

Steve Brusatte

"A sublime chronicle of our planet’s formation and beginnings, the perhaps unlikely yet awe-inspiring interactions that created life, diverse and abundant, and mass extinctions and recoveries. Knoll skillfully presents the extreme conditions, violence, and delicate fragility that mark the cycles and evolution of our home."

Booklist (starred review)

"Having spent decades at the forefront of discovery and research, Andrew H. Knoll has been one of our planet's leading scientists. In A Brief History of Earth, Knoll treats us to a 4.6-billion-year detective story revealing the origins and inner workings of our home in the solar system.  In these pages you'll discover something profound: how our past, present, and future are grounded in Planet Earth."

Neil Shubin

Charts the planet’s history in accessible style, from its beginning as ‘a small planet accreted out of rocky debris circling a modest young star’ through the development of minerals, geographical formations, atmosphere, and life forms large and small.” 

Associated Press

"The type of book that is sorely needed at this moment in history. ... Knoll assembles facts from a wide variety of fields to tell our planet’s story in a clear and accessible narrative."

Scientific Inquirer

An eloquent call to action.” 

CNN.com

Andrew Knoll, a Harvard professor and researcher in geology and paleontology, covers a lot of ground in just five hours of listening. But Tom Parks’s pacing of the narrative never feels rushed during this primer on the origins of life, geological catastrophes, and mass extinctions, continuing right up to our current climate crisis. Knoll has an approachable writing style; only occasionally does he lapse into textbook jargon that will be a challenge for those without a science background. Parks navigates the technical language well, and while this isn’t a breezy listen, it’s an accessible and enlightening look at the geological, chemical, and human forces that have shaped our planet’s evolution. D.B. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

AUGUST 2021 - AudioFile

Andrew Knoll, a Harvard professor and researcher in geology and paleontology, covers a lot of ground in just five hours of listening. But Tom Parks’s pacing of the narrative never feels rushed during this primer on the origins of life, geological catastrophes, and mass extinctions, continuing right up to our current climate crisis. Knoll has an approachable writing style; only occasionally does he lapse into textbook jargon that will be a challenge for those without a science background. Parks navigates the technical language well, and while this isn’t a breezy listen, it’s an accessible and enlightening look at the geological, chemical, and human forces that have shaped our planet’s evolution. D.B. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

AUGUST 2021 - AudioFile

2021-01-19
A geologist skillfully condenses the history of the Earth.

A Harvard professor of natural history and Earth and planetary sciences, Knoll begins when the Earth coalesced from dust and rocks circling the sun. Animals more complex than bacteria do not appear until the halfway point of the book, but few readers will complain. Good evidence for the Earth’s age did not appear until the 20th century, when measuring the decay of radioactive uranium revealed its age at 4.6 billion years. Rocks raining down generated enough heat to keep the Earth molten. By the time it cooled around 4 billion years ago, two substances we take for granted, water and oxygen, were missing. Water arrived from meteorites, which continue to fall, although less often than in previous millennia. Knoll engagingly recounts the theories of how life began along with the startling fact that evidence of microbial life appeared soon after the Earth cooled. It’s possible that life is not a lucky accident but inevitable once certain conditions are present. In the absence of oxygen, primitive organisms lived off alternate sources of energy such as sulfur or iron, which existed in the oceans and hot springs. More than 1 billion years passed before cyanobacteria evolved to extract energy from sunlight and water. This process of photosynthesis produced oxygen, leading eventually to the “Great Oxygenation Event” that marginalized older life forms but jump-started evolution because respiration using oxygen yields far more energy. After another 3 billion years, more complex organisms appeared. Early animals date from 500 million to 600 million years ago. Fish appeared at around 450 million years ago and began walking on land 100 million years later. In later chapters, Knoll speeds up the narrative but maintains a focus on geology as he proceeds through dinosaurs, mammals, continent migration, and catastrophic mass extinctions. Of course, the author’s study of humans dominates the closing section, which recounts hominid evolution and the dismal details of how we are making a mess of things.

An expert primer on the history of everything.

Kirkus Reviews