books
the history of life a very short introduction
here is the extraordinary story of the unfolding of life on earth told by michael j. benton a world renowned authority on biodiversity . ranging over four billion years benton weaves together the latest findings on fossils earth history evolutionary biology and many other fields to highlight the great leaps that enabled life to evolve from microbe to human big breakthroughs that made whole new ways of life possible including cell division and multicellularity hard skeletons the move to land the origin of forests the move to the air . he describes the mass extinctions especially the permian which obliterated 90 % of life and he sheds light on the origins of human beings and of the many hominids that went before us . he ends by pointing out that studying the past helps us to predict the future what happens if the atmosphere warms by 5 degrees what happens if we destroy much of the biodiversity on earth these things have happened before benton notes . we need only look to the distant past to know the future of life on earth . br about the series combining authority with wit accessibility and style very short introductions offer an introduction to some of lifes most interesting topics . written by experts for the newcomer they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics from philosophy to freud quantum theory to islam .
paperback oxford univ pr 2008 isbn13 9780199226320 isbn10 0199226326
book type nf isbn 13 9780199226320 number of pages 170 publisher oxford univ pr release date 62135769600000