Earth Story: The Shaping of Our World - Hardcover

Lamb, Simon; Sington, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0563387998 ISBN 13: 9780563387992

Publisher: BBC Books, 1998

Synopsis

The authors argue that the Earth is more than simply our birthplace, it is the thing that gave us birth. Their book invites readers to follow the journey our planet has undergone over the the last four billion years - starting at a time when there was no dry land. Life began around volcanoes on the floor of the primordial ocean. Their eruptions formed the Earth's crust and the first living creatures appeared. But then why did the dinosaurs become extinct? How were the Himalayas formed, over seven million years ago? Was the legend of Noah and the flood based on a real event? Simon Lamb and David Sington attempt to answer these questions and others, tracing evolution to the end of the 20th century. The focus is on the views of contemporary scientists who have effectively changed the way we think about the world, elaborating on the complex relationship between human beings and our ever-changing planet.

About this title

Review

The subtitle to Earth Story is to be taken literally. This remarkable book and the accompanying TV series set out to explain with imagination and scientific rigor The Shaping of Our World. No other planet in the solar system exhibits such frenetic geological activity. The Earth's mass is in continual flux as heat from the mantel, rising to the comparatively cool surface, stirs the tectonic plates upon which the continents ride, shuffling constantly. Lamb and Sington show how the climatic effects this shuffling engenders make life possible--but they go further. Without life, they argue, there is no temperature control mechanism on the planet's surface. Without that, there can be no oceans--Earth would, like Venus, lose its water to evaporation. And without oceans to act as a lubricant there can be no movement of tectonic plates. According to this argument only a planet which can sustain life can be geologically frenetic. The Earth's geology and biology, then, are part of a single mechanism.

Earth Story is no mere TV tie-in; its erudition is the equal of the best popular science, and its full-colour illustrations have the clarity and precision of classic school and college texts. On the other hand the photography, as one might expect from a documentary tie- in, is frequently breath- taking. If all this makes Earth Story sound like a chimera, well so it is--but as a medium for such an all-encompassing theory of geological and biological change this concatenation of popular science, college illustration and gosh-wow photography could hardly be bettered. --Simon Ings

Edition details

• Publisher: BBC Books
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0563387998
• ISBN 13: 9780563387992
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240