A Short History of Planet Earth: Mountains, Mammals, Fire, and Ice

The general reader can hardly do better than J.D. Macdougall's concise history of our planet. Helpfully organized in chronological order, this work synthesizes the best current thinking by scientists in an easily understood fashion regarding our geological past. The time charts at the beginning of each eon discription keep the reader oriented to the events relationships. The use and choice of charts & graphs prove helpful without being overdone. The author's detour into the techincal aspects of dating rocks and plate techtonics could be a bit boring to the general reader, but are situated in the text so that they can be skipped easily.The author brings you right up to the present day and delivers some thoughts as to how the cycles of the past may effect our future. I feel the author is very impartial when addressing "hotbutton" issues such as global warming, etc. There is also a helpful glossary in the back and suggestions for further reading for those whose appetite on this subject is wetted.

Ok - as a geologist myself, I love to read books on geology even if they cover a lot of material I already know. But this book surprised me in being very thorough on earth history including many very recent scientific discoveries and developments that I have only seen in scientific journals. He does a very nice job of covering the breath of earth history without being overly technical for the lay person, but yet engrossing enough for the professional geologist. Hey even we cannot know everything in the geology world - thus the reason I read this. MacDougall does a good job of providing the reader with both the rock history but also the history of life on earth, from the earliest bacterial forms through the amazing trilobites, dinosaurs and trees and grasses and such. He also does a good job of relating many of the geologic features around the US and the world to plate tectonics and the interplay of the environment that produces the rocks and features we see today For those budding young rock hounds or the adult wanting to brush up on an area that you could use more info on, or perhaps a geologist who wants to brush up on their earth history, I whole-heartedly recommend this book.

This book is not only a great way for the layman to get an understanding of the history of our planet, it's also a testament to the way science works. MacDougall writes clearly, avoids jargon, and doesn't hesitate to explain the reasoning behind statements about events in geological history. He doesn't leave loose ends nor does he make unsupported statements. He draws together different threads of evidence, allowing the reader to see how ideas come together to reinforce a statement about what happened millions or billions of years ago. He seems to anticipate questions a reader might ask and answers them. Far from a boring account, you could get excited not only about geology but about science in general from this book. I've read it twice and keep it on the shelf for future reference. Many drawings give clarity to the written account. There is no attempt to entertain the reader with gratuitous humor, so common in explanatory books these days. This isn't "for dummies" or "an idiot's guide." Instead, your intelligence, curiosity and scepticism are assumed. It isn't easy for creatures who live less than 100 years to grasp events that occur over millions of years but I found this book allowed me to conceptualize the earth's 4.5 billion year story in a very satisfying way.

My title above pretty much says it all! There is a good flow to the way one paragraph flows into another. I am a layman with an interest in the integrated "big systems" of science--how processes studied by several disciplines come together and attempt to explain how our planet works. This book does that to the point I may want to go on to more specialized, in-depth works. Chapter Ten, "Global Catastrophes" is the clearest account I have ever read of mass extinction theories. I had not realized that the now very famous K-T boundary event of 65 million years ago (the dinosaur killer) is the only extinction event uncovered in the last 600 million years where the "smoking gun" of extraterrestrial iridium can be found in enough abundence to point to a comet or asteroid impact. I had thought that there was evidence to show that there were incoming impactors every 26 million years or so and that this had caused other mass extinctions including the biggest one at the Permian-Triassic boundary some 250 million years ago. These other mass extinctions may very well have come about because of purely earth-bound processes such as plate tectonics and rising and falling sea levels. Fascinating stuff to say the least! Drawings and diagrams are well done and to the point also. I recommend MacDougall as heir apparent to the Late, Great Carl Sagan as a popularizer of the great realm of science! Enjoy!