A New History of Life: The Radical New Discoveries about the Origins and Evolution of Life on Earth

Peter Ward · Joe Kirschvink

Apr 2015 · Bloomsbury Publishing USA

About this ebook

The history of life on Earth is, in some form or another, known to us all--or so we think. A New History of Life offers a provocative new account, based on the latest scientific research, of how life on our planet evolved--the first major new synthesis for general readers in two decades.

Charles Darwin's theories, first published more than 150 years ago, form the backbone of how we understand the history of the Earth. In reality, the currently accepted history of life on Earth is so flawed, so out of date, that it's past time we need a 'New History of Life.'

In their latest book, Joe Kirschvink and Peter Ward will show that many of our most cherished beliefs about the evolution of life are wrong. Gathering and analyzing years of discoveries and research not yet widely known to the public, A New History of Life proposes a different origin of species than the one Darwin proposed, one which includes eight-foot-long centipedes, a frozen “snowball Earth”, and the seeds for life originating on Mars.

Drawing on their years of experience in paleontology, biology, chemistry, and astrobiology, experts Ward and Kirschvink paint a picture of the origins life on Earth that are at once too fabulous to imagine and too familiar to dismiss--and looking forward, A New History of Life brilliantly assembles insights from some of the latest scientific research to understand how life on Earth can and might evolve far into the future.

Ratings and reviews

This could be a great book, but needs a lot of editing. Also, if this is meant to be for a wide audience, please move discussion of the back and forth between various researchers out, or to extended footnotes.

Comprehensive, cutting edge, repetitive

About the author

Peter Ward is a Professor of Biology and Professor of Earth and Space Sciences at the University of Washington. He has numerous seventeen books, among them the prizewinning Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe, with Donald Brownlee, and his writing has earned varied honors, earning multiple nominations for awards ranging from the Keck Science Writing Award to the Los Angeles Times Book Award. He has been a main speaker at TED and has received the Jim Shea Award for popular science writing, joining recipients such as Stephen Jay Gould and John McPhee.

Joe Kirschvink is the Nico and Marilyn Van Wingen Professor of Geobiology at the California Institute of Technology, as well as a Fellow of the American Society for the Advancement of Science, the American Geophysical Union, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His pioneering work in earth science includes formulating and naming the "Snowball Earth" hypothesis. Asteroid 27711 is named after him.