The Earth

This ebook edition does not include illustrations.

‘The Earth is a true delight: full of awe-inspiring details… it blends travel, history, reportage and science to creat an unforgettable picture of our ancient earth.’ Sunday Times

The face of the Earth, criss-crossed by chains of mountains like the scars of old wounds has changed constantly over billions of years, and the testament of the remote past is all around us.

In this book, Richard Fortey teaches us how to read its character, laying out the dominions of the world before us. He shows how everything – human culture, natural history, even the shape of cities – roots back to a deeper geological truth. Far from being the driest of sciences, he proves that geology informs all our lives in the most intimate way.

Nothing in this book seems to be at rest. The surface of the Earth dilates and collapses; seas and mountains rise and fall; continents move. We climb the Alps, wallow in Icelandic hot springs, dive down to the ocean floor; we explore the barren rocks of Newfoundland, walk through the lush ecosystems of Hawaii, cross the salt flats of Oman and saunter along the San Andreas Fault. And Fortey is the ideal guide, his descriptions of natural beauty as memorable as the best travel-writers, his prose as gripping as the best novelist, his crystal-clear scientific explanations fascinating and often surprising.

Note that it has not been possible to include the same picture content that appeared in the original print version.

Reviews

Praise for Richard Fortey’s work:

‘This is not a book for people who like science books. It is a book for people who love books, and life… [Fortey] has written a wonderful book.’
Tim Radford, Guardian

‘Read this book because it is, indeed, the best natural history of the first four billion years of life on earth.’
John Gribbin, Sunday Times

‘Fortey writes beautifully and this is a wonderful biography of rock and life… He has restored palaeontology to its rightful place in the pantheon.’
Lewis Wolpert, Observer

‘Richard Fortey is a scientist… but his big, rich history of four billion years of evolution is written with an artist’s zest for life and language… Anyone who wants to understand how we came to be here on earth, 4,000,000,000 years after life began, should read this sparkling book.’
Maggie Gee, Daily Telegraph

About the author

Richard Fortey spent his working life in palaeontology at the Natural History Museum, specialising in trilobites and becoming a world expert. He was elected President of the Geological Society of London for its bicentennial year of 2007 and is a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the Royal Society of Literature. He has received the Frink Medal, the Michael Faraday Prize and the Lewis Thomas Prize for science writing, as well as the silver medal of the Zoological Society for science communication. He is the writer of eight previous science and nature books, including two Sunday Times bestsellers, all of which are still in print. He has presented many television programmes across the BBC and other channels.