A Walk Through Time: From Stardust to Us--The Evolution of Life on Earth

by Brian Swimme, Elisabet Sahtouris

Fifteen Billion Years in the Life . . A breathtaking, vibrantly illustrated history of the universe. "A valuable new way to conceive of the immensity of geological time and of organic evolution that has occurred within it. It has broad appeal to the public and will be a useful guide for science educators as well."--E. O. Wilson. "My Walk Through Time was an unforgettable experience, awe-inspiring, and humbling...rich in scientific fact and unexpectedly, exquisite humor."--Jane Goodall. A Walk Through Time is a landmark book, gorgeously illustrating the remarkable drama of the history of the universe, from the furious blast of the Big Bang to the first pulse of life on Earth, and on through the rich pageant of life's evolution from primordial microbes to the rise of Homo sapiens. Spanning 15 billion years, the story of life's greatest mysteries emerges here through 130 beautiful four-color illustrations and an absorbing narrative. Combining the knowledge of three expert authors, the text covers the most up-to-date findings, including new understandings about how the universe coalesced into galaxies and planets; how microscopic animals can survive in such superheated environments as deep-sea vents and inside the Earth's core, and the possibility that water came to our planet from space in the form of millions of tiny comets. A Walk Through Time gives readers a new perspective on awe-inspiring processes that produced us and our place in the universe. The companion to a traveling exhibition developed by Hewlett Packard and the Foundation for Global Community. * Lavishly produced by the team that created The Illustrated Brief History of Time. Brian Swimme, Ph.D. (San Francisco, CA), is a cosmologist and the director of the Center for the Story of the Universe at the California Institute of Integral Studies. He is the author of several books, including The Universe Story. Dr. Sid Liebes (Palo Alto, CA) is a senior scientist at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories. Elisabet Sahtouris, Ph.D. (San Francisco, CA) is an evolutionary biologist and consultant to the United Nations.

Genres: Science, Evolution, Nonfiction, Biology

224 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1998

Reviews

[Jenny Delandro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wandering through the library... I allowed my inner geek to pick this....:)
It has always fasinated me how rock can be different colours and how gem stones are formed.
this book got a bit preachy towards the end... after charting, what this scientist interperates from fossils and bedrock, to be a fairly accurate timeline.... he starts predicting that next mass extinction event will be caused by humans and we need to stop the destruction of habitates and the loss of creatures unique to those regions...

I agree that a lot of what is happening is beyond our control and that greed is often the main driving force... but a lot of habitates are disappearing due to urban sprawl... and food crops that are needed to feed the ever increasing population.
Ooops... I just got a bit preachy... sorry!
This is a thought provoking book ..

[J.D. Steens · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title of this book more than hints that the authors will walk the reader through the long evolution of life. The book does do this and even anchors evolution in the history of stars and the cosmos. But "time" in this way is almost incidental to what is the more fundamental theme of this book: All matter, inorganic and organic, is governed by self-assembly and self-organizing dynamics. Atoms and galaxies are not aggregates but "self-organizing communities" pulled together by forces of attraction. The power of attraction is, though, one-half of the dynamic. The othr half is resistance, and the attraction-resistance dynamic eventually leads to a balance between and among bodies that allows for the formation of a "community," or "one body in relation to other bodies." A community in this sense consists of both autonomous parts that are also parts of a greater whole. This becomes clearer in the book's description of life's evolution that is a series of wholes becoming parts, and parts becoming wholes (cells, organis, bodies, and communities of bodies). For emphasis, the book says that just as our cities look like cells, the earth is a giant cell. All life forms are not objects per se, but a "consortium" of transformed and still-living beings (bacteria; self-contained cells, etc.) that are independent and interdependent. This, not time, is the book's primary emphasis. What is striking is life's similarity in this respect to the attraction-repulsion-balance dynamics that characterize inorganic matter.

[Amanda Witt]

A bit scientific in parts, explaining every process of life from the 'Big Bang' to bacteria and the dinosaurs millions of years ago, but a well written book, with good illustrations on nearly every second page.