Life: A Natural History of the First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth in Science and Inquiry

May 17, 2020 Tomislav rated it liked it

Shelves: science

Like Richard Fortey, one of my own first experiences of the full biography of life on Earth was Disney’s animation of Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, in the film Fantasia. This book is a more accurate and complete version of the same. At the time he wrote this, Fortey was a senior paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in London, and a frequent BBC guest. I had previously read his Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms: The Story of the Animals and Plants That Time Has Left Behind (US title), Like Richard Fortey, one of my own first experiences of the full biography of life on Earth was Disney’s animation of Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, in the film Fantasia. This book is a more accurate and complete version of the same. At the time he wrote this, Fortey was a senior paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in London, and a frequent BBC guest. I had previously read his Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms: The Story of the Animals and Plants That Time Has Left Behind (US title), and enjoyed it enough to seek out this earlier and more foundational book.

More than the story told by paleontology, this book is also the story of paleontology, with Fortey relating his personal experiences and perspectives on various episodes in the history of the field. Chapters are arranged chronologically, starting with the inception of life on Earth four billion years ago, moving through his own specialization during and around the Ordovician Period, up to just before the onset of recorded history. As you might expect, his writing is best when working in those fascinating undersea and early terrestrial worlds of the Cambrian through Permian Periods of the Paleozoic Era. Outside that area of his passion, the origins of life are better explained and understood from the perspective of molecular biology. And after those periods, he acknowledges the intense popular fascination with dinosaurs and early humans and turns more to stories of the paleontologists themselves – and he is someone to know them.

All together it is a thorough, if light, overview. One shortcoming is that the book is now 23 years old, and state-of-the-understanding has changed in a few areas. The other is his showy style of writing. I think he must see himself as an entertaining polymath, drawing frequent references to classical literature of the British educated class. I speak the American dialect of the same language, and do not share that background. I’m aware of the references, but they are just not the touchstone for me that they must be for his audience.

In summary, I appreciated the book, but I did not find it as fascinating as his book on fossil species that have survived with only small adaptation into modern times. ...more

5 likes · Like · see review

Aug 12, 2011 Cassandra Kay Silva rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: science

Of the two books I have read by this author. His book entitled Earth was much better than this. This was still fairly comprehensive for the size and was enjoyable in a sense, but I think the writing was not as good and the layout was a bit less well conceived. I should have liked this one better for subject matter alone but he really does a wonderful job from the geology perspective, much more than the biology side of things.

1 like · Like · see review

Apr 25, 2010 James rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: paleontology, biology, non-fiction, science, evolution

Yet another of the myriad of "history of life" pop-science books, I think what makes this particular one stand out are the auto-biographical elements interspersed with the scientific topics. Without these elements, the book would have been fairly generic, despite Fortey's readable and engaging writing style.

Many other books cover the same ground scientifically, most significantly of the books I have read being Don Prothero's Evolution: What The Fossil's Say And Why It Matters, and Nick Lane's L Yet another of the myriad of "history of life" pop-science books, I think what makes this particular one stand out are the auto-biographical elements interspersed with the scientific topics. Without these elements, the book would have been fairly generic, despite Fortey's readable and engaging writing style.

Many other books cover the same ground scientifically, most significantly of the books I have read being Don Prothero's Evolution: What The Fossil's Say And Why It Matters, and Nick Lane's Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution. Both of these books cover the science in more detail, as well as with more depth, than Fortey's book. They are also much more up to date. Bill Bryson's book A Short History of Nearly Everything incorporates the history of science and biographical elements in a much greater depth than Fortey, and with an element of humor that Fortey usually lacks.

There was one other issue that bothered me continually as I was reading. Fortey constantly refers to such things as the "chain of life", the "ladder of evolution", higher and lower animals, and so on. While this may be a popular science book, that does not mean that the author should incorporate what amounts to lay-audience mistaken conceptions of how evolution works. Perhaps Fortey felt that a popular science book was not the place to address such philosophical issues, but plenty of other authors do so without much issue. There is no "chain of being", and there are no such thing as higher and lower animals. These are holdovers from the 19th century. Fortey should know better.

I really wanted this book to be better, and while it certainly isn't bad, it falls short of the other books I mentioned. It wouldn't be the first thing I would recommend to someone who was interested in learning about the history of life, paleontology, or evolution. There are better options. That said, if you are already well acquainted with the science, it's worth reading for the insights into how science is conducted by scientists, as well as the vivid descriptions of past ecosystems and organisms. ...more

Like · see review