Description
Book SynopsisProvides an overview of the commonality of life on Earth. Inspired by the idea of symbiosis in evolution, the book explores the challenges and behaviors shared by creatures from bacteria to humans and all those in between.
Trade Review“A skillfully written, well-informed, and accessible reverie on the nature of life on Earth, both fascinating and highly recommended.”
—Susan Waggoner Foreword Reviews
“Life comes in countless variations, yet all are based on the same biological principles. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas loves them all—from lichens to fungi and from crocodiles to primates—and puts us on a time machine to go back to the turns evolution has taken, many of them surprising, and one of them leading to us.”
—Frans de Waal,author of Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?
Table of ContentsContents
1. About This Book
2. Our Bedroom
3. Microbes
4. Protists
5. Fungi
6. Animals
7. Dry Land
8. Lichens
9. Plants
10. Arthropods on Land
11. Vertebrates
12. Amphibians
13. Proto-Mammals
14. Dinosaurs
15. Pterosaurs
16. Crocodiles
17. Birds
18. Mammals
19. From Monkeys to the Missing Link
20. The Line to Homo Sapiens
21. Neandertals
22. Why Do We Look the Way We Look?
23. The San, Formerly Known as Bushmen
24. Gaia’s Rule One: Find a Source of Energy
25. Gaia’s Rule Two: Protect Yourself
26. Gaia’s Rule Three: Reproduce
27. The Present
28. The Future
Coda
Acknowledgments
