Winner of the Royal Society Science Book. 'Exhilaratingly whizzes through billions of years
. . . Gee is a marvellously engaging writer' - The Times 4.6 billion years of the story of
life on Earth in twelve concise chapters. Brief brilliant and entirely gripping. For
billions of years Earth was an inhospitably alien place - covered with churning seas slowly
crafting its landscape through volcanic eruptions the atmosphere in a constant state of
chemical flux. And yet despite facing literally every conceivable setback that living
organisms could encounter life has been extinguished and picked itself up to evolve again.
From that first foray to the spread of early hominids who later became Homo sapiens life has
persisted undaunted. A (Very) Short History of Life: 4.6 Billion Years in 12 Chapters is an
enlightening story of survival of persistence illuminating the delicate balance within which
life has always existed and continues to exist today. It is our planet like you've never seen
it before. Dr Henry Gee presents creatures from 'gregarious' bacteria populating the seas to
duelling dinosaurs in the Triassic period to magnificent mammals with the future in their
grasp. Life's evolutionary steps - from the development of a digestive system to the awe of
creatures taking to the skies in flight - are conveyed with an up-close intimacy. 'Henry Gee
makes the kaleidoscopically changing canvas of life understandable and exciting.' - Jared
Diamond author of Guns Germs and Steel
