A Most Improbable Journey: A Big History of Our Planet and Ourselves

by Walter Álvarez, Adam Verner (Narrator)

Big History, the field that studies the entire known past of our universe to give context to human existence, has so far been the domain of historians. Geologist Walter Alvarez - best known for his Impact Theory explaining dinosaur extinction - makes a compelling case for a new, science-first approach to Big History. He brings a scientist's view to the human story, from the creation of our universe and our planet, the rise of life, the movement of our continents and its effect on human migration, to humanity's ascendance due to our mastery of Earth's natural resources. Alvarez's illuminating observations will give listeners a new appreciation of the events, from the Big Bang to the Bronze Age and beyond, that have led to the human situation.

Genres: Science, History, Nonfiction, Geology, Evolution, Biology, Natural History

Audible Audio

Published November 15, 2016

About the author

Walter Álvarez is a professor of geology at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of the best-selling T. Rex and the Crater of Doom. He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences and a past recipient of the Penrose Medal, the highest award given by the Geological Society of America. He lives in Berkeley, California.

Reviews

[Jamie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having already read about the topics covered in this book from schooling, I felt this book was a kind of just a "refresher" of information for me. However, it is still a fascinating book on cosmology, biology, and geology. (great section on how Nebulas are created)

This information is easily understandable, so I would recommend this to anyone who would like to discover how our Earth works, how it was created, and the last four billion years of its history (that we know of so far).

[Allison · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVED this book on so many levels.

I loved that it reminded me of how fleeting, and how severely insignificant we are.

I loved that lulled me into perspective.

I loved that it could successfully equate the macro-universe with the micro-elements of our planet, and make that all make perfect sense.

I loved how it concluded that nothing is predictable, that even the physics of numeracy is actually weirdly unpredictable, at least for our brains at this point in time.

I absolutely loved the introduction of a new, exciting and growing genre of study -- Big History -- and how the author made me wish fervently that I had followed his career path (ah, regret...).

And I loved how it made me feel LUCKY in every way. And like a winner -- we won! we're here, you guys! -- and how we're important to our offspring and to all of Earth's future, but not important at all, really, on an individual level.

Highly, highly recommend this book. I consider it one of my best this year!

[Beauregard Bottomley · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just love Alvarez. He did more to change my world view than almost any other living person. He opened my eyes (and countless other peoples') by providing for an explanation that transcended my ability to initially accept. Before his explanation for his comet, creationist roamed the earth, now they are rarer but unfortunately not extinct (sure in America they are about 45% creationist but they hide that fact from rational thinking beings. It used to be they were in your face, but seldom anymore). The understanding of the earth and human's place on it was remade because of that comet 66 million years ago for which he offered proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The pieces of the puzzle were put in place and the narrative was provided principally by Alvarez (and a few of his colleagues), and he knows way more about Geology and minerals than I'm capable of ever understanding. BTW, I give him a great compliment by providing the world as he saw it has a solution like a puzzle. It's possible the world has no structure (see Wittgenstein's Tractacus, e.g.).

But my gratitude does not make a great book. To make a great book tell me things I don't already know. I read all books and Great Course lectures with "Big History" in the title. I can't get enough on the topic. I'm always more interested in the universal rather than the particular. There's a story to be told about the universe as a whole and how there is this incredibly contingent and chaotic component that gets created from a recursive (a function that calls itself) algorithm (logos as John the Apostle would say).

There's hints of a great narrative within this book, but it never gets flushed out. The pieces that are needed in order to bake an apple pie from scratch (from Gods perspective) or end up creating you or me can not be easily created. The comet that destroyed the dinosaurs, the creation of the moon, the Alps as a barrier, the placement of the Ohio river, the 3 billion year journey from single cell to multi-cell, the acquisition of the mitochondria at some unknown time by an eukaryotic cell, everything has to be just right and all, as everything (within our universe), has to be because something caused it to be that way and the sensitivities due to initial conditions (chaos) made the prediction impossible. Laplace and his mechanistic universe with an all seeing and all knowing machine (God) would never really be able to predict it since it can never predict its own effect caused by its observing. All of those items are within this book, but only loosely cohesively.

The author mostly has just threads that could be tied together. Sometimes he sneaks into 'pernicious teleological' thinking by assuming the existence of something had a purpose in it of itself ("the hand is made for grabbing because it does it so well", not his example, of course, but he does seem to give too much credence to fine tuning). The contingent universe and the contingent making of an apple pie (illusion of "apple pie" is borrowed from Sagan) may not never be. I think the author clearly leans towards a contingent universe. His example of the failure of the Spanish Armada leads me to think that.

I was reluctant to read this book because I expected there would be little new in the book for me, and I was right. For all authors, assume your readers are interested in learning about the topic so much that they have already read books that cover the same kind of topics. Give me things I don't already know, or give me a narrative that ties the pieces together in such way that I've never had thought about it before. The author is infinitely smarter and wiser than me, but wow me with a narrative.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was quite an interesting journey. I wasn't always on board with the way he broke things up, but I liked the broad overview of so many segments of time in various ways. He gives basic overviews of different events like the Big Bang to the formation of Earth, how plate tectonics shaped human history, & a variety of interesting journeys of our evolution through time. Check out
http://www.chronozoom.com/
which has timelines of historical events, including some deep time.

I wasn't thrilled with his probability analysis at the end. Yes, a lot of improbable events came down to creating me, including huge numbers of sperm throughout time, but that's more the realm of philosophy or a fun theme of multiple universes in SF. I'm more interested in the practicality of how it all came together.

Still, it was well narrated & very interesting all the way through. Definitely recommended.

[Charlene · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was really disappointed in this book. The title alone should have clued me into the way Alvarez views the world. I, like Alvarez, am in love with the rocks and what they tell us. I too am wooed by the story of Earth-- how it came to be, how we came to be, and how everything upon it came to be. It's magical. Alvarez and I can agree on that. However, when it comes to how likely it was that Earth and humans came to exist at all, Alvarez would have a much nicer time talking to Dawkins and the rest of the "lucky accident crowd" than he would talking to me. This book was written in 2016. It's time to stop the happy accident story telling. It's outdated. Let's instead look for the patterns that resulted in our very likely existence - *even considering differences in initial conditions that make outcomes hard to predict*. Chaos theory doesn't mean we will *never* understand how we came to exist. Every time we thought humans were special or that our planet was special, we turned out to be wrong.

In the end, we are human beings who have spent centuries gathering myriad scientific tools for the sole purpose of gaining a better understanding of how we came to exist. It stands to reason that we will continue to gather more tools and continue to refine our understanding of how the universe, world, and life came to be. There is no need for such a focus on improbable miracles. All things that appear to be miracles are, in the end, scientific phenomena waiting for our human brains to finally understand well enough to explain.

This book might have served well as a very basic intro to geology. However, because of its happy accident focus, that is identical to Dawkins "happy accident" focus in the Selfish Gene, this book cannot even serve as an appropriate intro to geology book.

[Book Shark · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Most Improbable Journey: A Big History of Our Planet and Ourselves by Walter Alvarez

“A Most Improbable Journey” is an awe-inspiring and accessible history of our planet and ourselves that combines the cosmos, earth, life and humanity. Famed geologist and professor at the University of California, Berkely, Walter Alvarez takes the reader on a stimulating ride through our planet’s history and the incredible occurrences that have led us to where we are today. This inspiring 256-page book includes the following ten chapters: 1. Big History, the Earth, and the Human Situation, 2. From the Big Bang to Planet Earth, 3. Gifts from the Earth, 4. A Planet with Continents and Oceans, 5. A Tale of Two Mountain Ranges, 6. Remembering Ancient Rivers, 7. Your Personal Record of Life History, 8. The Great Journey, 9. Being Human, and 10. What Was the Chance of All This Happening?

Positives:
1. Great science writing. Informative, interesting, accessible and fun to read.
2. A fascinating topic, the panoramic viewpoint of history, “Big History” that combines history and science about our universe.
3. A very good format and overall good flow. Each chapter covers an interesting aspect of Big History. Professor Alvarez has a great command of the topics and the innate ability to convey concepts clearly and with a sense of awe.
4. Good use of photos, maps and illustrations that complement the accessible narrative.
5. Provides a quick account of how cosmic history produced the planet and our solar system. “In an expanding universe, if you were to go backward in time, the galaxies would get closer and closer together, until all the galaxies and all the space between them would be confined to a tiny ball, and this was the Big Bang, almost 14 billion years ago. The Big Bang is usually described as an explosion, although not like ones familiar to us. It was not an explosion within space, like a firecracker or a quarry blast, but an explosion of space and of matter and even of time itself, none of which existed until the explosion took place.”
6. Find out the three wonderful tricks that Nature used to make our world possible.
7. Explains how Earth makes resources useful. “Of those four dominant elements, let’s focus on silicon because it is the basis of most of the minerals and rocks that make up our planet.”
8. Defines key terms and concepts throughout the book. ““Tectonics” is the study of the large-scale geological features of Earth—continents, ocean basins, and mountain ranges—and the word comes from the same root as “architecture”—in this case, the architecture of our planet.”
9. The revolutionary discovery that continents move. “In 1912 the German meteorologist Alfred Wegener presented a detailed theory of continental drift, starting from the coastline fit.”
10. Instead of going into deep depth on each topic and thus dissuading the layperson, Alvarez provides key examples that succeeds in enlightening the reader. “In keeping with the Big History approach, let us look at our two mountain ranges first from the viewpoint of historians, then of travelers and artists and, finally, of geologists.”
11. Mountain history. “The fundamental discovery of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century geologists was that Earth history has not been brief—not just a few thousand years, but enormously long, going back to an origin that has now been dated as about 4,500 million years ago.”
12. Describes how external processes like rivers, glaciers and the wind create the geological changes the produce the landscapes that we live in. “Getting the agreement to build the Erie Canal was difficult, and digging the ditch and building the locks in an age of hand labor was herculean, but once the canal was finished in 1825, it changed everything. The agricultural products of the west and the manufactures of the east floated easily along the placid waters of the canal, linking the coastal states and the new interior lands into a dynamic, growing nation.”
13. The keys to life history. “Fossils and DNA give complementary records of life history, each supplying information the other cannot. Fossils tell us what an organism looked like, while DNA tells how two organisms are related.”
14. Interesting tidbits throughout. “Eating with your jaw is a much more ancient activity than using it to tell stories!”
15. Explores how humans tie into the deeper history of our planet. The grand theory of evolution and the human journey. “Finally, about 200,000 years ago, came Homo sapiens, who developed sophisticated culture and a wide range of advanced tools made from stone and other materials.”
16. Describes how human ancestry is revealed. “So we have two tracers of our human ancestry—mitochondrial DNA for the female side and Y-chromosome DNA for the male line.”
17. Describes how the achievements that make us human and how the Earth history has set the stage for these achievements. “The use of fire is not often on the list of critical human attributes, but when we look at what makes us human, controlled fire use might even be the most defining characteristic of our species.”
18. Describes history through the key concepts of continuity and contingency. “On the one hand, I see continuities, made up of trends and cycles, combined in various ways at various time scales. On the other hand, there are contingencies—rare events that make significant changes in history that could not have been predicted very far in advance.”
19. Find out the satisfying conclusion of this book.
20. Notes and further sources provided.

Negatives:
1. It was so much fun to read, I was sad when it was over.
2. Not so much a negative but a disclaimer to readers looking for depth, this book is intended for laypersons.
3. Good use of photos and illustrations but I would have added more timelines.

In summary, this is what good popular science writing is all about; a fascinating story grounded in good science and fun to read. Professor Alvarez succeeds in providing the public with an awe-inspiring book on the history of the universe through the four regimes of cosmos, earth, life and humanity. A great gift for the Holidays. A highly recommended read, get this!

Further recommendations: “The Big Picture” by Sean Carroll, “Improbable Planet” by Hugh Ross, “Big History” by Cynthia Stokes Brown, “The Serengeti Rules” by Sean B. Carroll, “Welcome to the Universe” by Neil deGrasse Tyson, “How it Began” by Chris Impey, “Extinction: How Life on Earth Nearly Ended 250 Million Years Ago” by Douglas Erwin, “Wonders of the Universe” and “Wonders of Life” by Brian Cox, “The Great Extinctions” by Norman MacLeod, “Written in Stone” by Brian Switek, “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” by Yuval Noah Harari.

[Holly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Walter Alvarez – known as the geologist who theorized the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs (the Chicxulub event) – is now a scholar of “big history.” This book is an exercise in big history and was my introduction to the field (or is it? see last paragraph), though I know a historian named David Christian has an $85 college textbook on it. Is big history the same as “global history” of Lynn Hunt and Jo Guldi and David Armitage's History Manifesto? I haven't read those (yet), but Alvarez does mention Fernand Braudel and the longue durée, so I'll assume they overlap or are similar.

Suffice it to say I was not terrifically impressed by the “big history” approach displayed here, but that is my response to Alvarez’s book, perhaps not the entire field. His approach was simply so broad that it was practically useless to me – in 200 pages of text he glosses over so many things with such a broad brush - from creation of the planet to first life, to geological features (mountains, rivers), to human evolution, to the bronze age and forward, to a brief epilogue on what he calls “contingencies” (coincidences and twists of fate that make up life as we know it). I was already familiar with most of what the book surveyed, and yes, it could be fun to read if one wanted to see short summaries of all the disparate ideas in the same presentation, in the same book. But it’s not as if I hadn’t made some of the connections before or been led there by brilliant writers – I’m not so narrow-minded not to have seen links between the big events and the little details. And for that matter, Alvarez isn’t that skilled at linking tectonic plates and the human microbiome (for example) – he mostly presents everything in separate linear discussions anyway. So I don’t quite understand the novelty.

I do grasp why there might be a scholarly reaction against the “micro-histories” that have become so popular, and I know the academic disciplines are too compartmentalized. But haven’t plenty of historians and scientists and big-picture intellectuals gone this way before, by gathering and synthesizing the discoveries and the research from various fields? What about Eric Kandel – a man who constantly amazes me by the breadth and depth of his knowledge? Or Timothy Ferris who writes on cosmology and history and combines the two? What about playwright-novelist Michael Frayn’s big nonfiction book on humans and the creation of the universe? Daniel Dennett? Steven Pinker? Stephen Jay Gould? Jared Diamond? Anyway, I'll need to read one of those other new books on global/big history at some point. Or I could just keep reading widely, which has worked pretty well so far.

[Noah Goats · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Big History” is a technique of considering history by going all the way back to the cosmological, geological, and evolutionary forces that have shaped human events. For example, if you want to understand The Battle of Gettysburg you have to go back and look at how the Big Bang formed all the hydrogen in the universe, and then how more elements were created by fusion in the cores of stars, how these elements were then diffused across the galaxy by supernovas, and how this interstellar clouds and dust gradually became compressed by gravity... blah, blah, blah, and the Lee ordered Pickett’s charge and lost the Civil War for the South. Frankly, I’m not convinced that Big History is very useful.

Walter Alvarez is an engaging writer, and there were parts of this book that I enjoyed. The story of how bronze age culture was able to arise in the Mediterranean at the time it did because millions of years before undersea vents had spewed out massive amounts of copper before being pushed up above ground by tectonic pressures and forming the island of Cyprus, was interesting and showed the usefulness of Big History, but much of this book seemed superficial.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent read overall. Alvarez is a top notch scientist with a gift for lay person explanations.

The chapter on the history of fire was mind blowing. The chapters on oxidization and the bronze age were also fascinating.

The rating would be higher but the book is too short.

4.5 stars. Highly recommended.

[Steve Van Slyke · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed his T. Rex and the Crater of Doom and thus was eager to read this as soon as it came out. I think I would have given it 5 stars if I hadn't already read as much as I have about the various subjects he covers. I think it's greatest appeal may be to those who haven't read a great deal about geology and science and want to know more about the history of Earth and how it relates to the evolution of life from bacteria to homo sapiens.

[Ed Bernard · Rating 4 out of 5]

More like 4.5 stars.
Somehow I became interested in so-called “big” history, which, near as I can figure, combines vast timelines and interdisciplinary science to give a broader view of … something. I chose this book, because the author is the guy who first provided proof of the meteor (or comet) which struck the earth 66 million years ago and killed off the dinosaurs. A geologist by trade, he withstood the slings and arrows of outrageous (and outraged) scientists to see his idea accepted as part of the scientific canon. So … props to him, and his book is an entertaining and interesting look at human history from the perspective of several sciences … but mostly geology. He argues that much of human history is an accident of geology – for example, Americans pushed west because the 13 colonies would be trapped by the Atlantic Ocean on the east and the Appalachian mountains to the west. True enough, but plenty of other countries are locked by the geology and don’t manage to do anything about it. Alvarez also kept reminding us about the glories of big history, which got pretty annoying and even distracted from his story – hey, Walter, in the science of persuasive writing, there is an axiom called “show, don’t tell” – big history is cool enough without needing to constantly remind us how cool it is, especially when it’s not extreme well defined or delineated. But my overwhelming response to this book is that it was a fascinating listen, both well-written and well-read in audiobook form.

Grade: A-

[Dale · Rating 4 out of 5]

Working my way slowing along books en espanol. I knew of Alvazrez's work some of the science behind it, but his telling of the story of--well, of everything--and just how unlikely it is that we are all here is good reading in any language.

[Walt · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very clear, high-level view of how our earth and its inhabitants evolved over time. The author gives you a more realistic look of how l-o-n-g it took in time (millions & millions of years) to get to where we are today on this planet.

[Samuel Layne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Historians tend to write about the history of peoples, cultures, and civilizations but geologists, in addition, write about the history of the planet, the earth, its composition, the messages hidden in its rocks and how it choreographed the evolutionary history of all species over geologic time.

Understanding this journey then: it's geological periods, the geography of continents and how these shaped the kingdoms and empires of men; the geography of the oceans and how these determined routes and explorations; and how 70,000 years ago the very route out of Africa our hunter-gatherer forebears fleeing climate change was able to take was only possible due to the land bridge that formed between African and Ariba by plate tectonics that occurred some 25 million years earlier, as well as, the then much lower level of the Red Sea as the last Ice Age, was ending. Almost as if evolution with the earth had prepared a path for our species to survive.

Understanding this journey of the earth then becomes a prerequisite to understanding the evolutionary journey of hominins, our forebears, and thereby us, Homo sapiens, their descendants - and may well inform our understanding of how climate change will once again choreograph Homo sapiens lives as yet once more the Earth and its systems have begun to change, this time not with ice but with heat, and may well propel modern humans as it did our forebears, on a species-wide survival driven migration.

This time, however, that migration won't be just from Africa to Europe, but from Earth to another habitable planet. The only question then is - will evolution and the Earth chip-in once more to help us survive as it did our forebears?

Read more like this in other books in this group including Survival, Evolutionary Rules for Intelligent Species Survival.

[Mia-Mae Taitimu-Stevens · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you’re looking for an accessible introduction to the origins of everything—our planet, history, and humanity—Walter Alvarez delivers with The Most Improbable Journey. Beautifully structured into themed chapters, the book explains complex concepts in layman’s terms (though the occasional Google search might be needed). I'm not scientifically inclined and I finished it in a weekend!

Never did I think learning about tectonic plates and submersions could be so fascinating. Alvarez’s ability to connect what we consider mundane—like tectonic plates—to ancient, shifting continents that crash, retract, and continue to reshape our world today, is awe-inspiring. It’s a remarkable reminder of how interconnected the processes of creation are across Earth and the cosmos.

The highlight for me was the perspective it gave—deepening my appreciation for the natural world and the sheer improbability of our existence. However, one limitation noted by other readers is that the book sometimes sacrifices depth for breadth, glossing over more detailed explanations in favor of its sweeping narrative. While this makes it accessible, it might leave more scientifically inclined readers wanting.

[Jrobertus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alvarez is a world famous geologist; he found the iridium band that pointed to the Chicxulub meteor strike that likely killed off the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. This notion of major historical turning points led him into the currently fashionable “big history” movement. In this book he describes scientific thinking about eight events that shaped the world and humanity. These include and touch on topics like the big bang, the formation of atoms, condensation of metals into planets, formation of continents and continental drift, formation of life, photosynthesis and oxygen formation, development of multicellularity, mass extinctions, and the rise in humans of language, use of fire, and culture. His style is clear and orderly so it is informative and easy read. As a nerd there was little in here I was unaware of, but his avuncular narrative was great fun. Sit back with a nice cup of tea and prepare to be enchanted.

[Beckie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best books I think I have ever read. I wish someone would have handed me this book when I was in high school. Maybe even middle school. For years I studied every subject in school and just didn't get how it all fit together. I knew that it had to all fit together somehow but no teacher ever stopped to explain it to me. I always wanted to understand though and I never stopped reading or trying to figure it all out and in this (honestly quite short) book so many puzzle pieces finally clicked into place!

This is the first Big History book I have read but I'm not stopping with this one. I think everyone should study history in this way. We should change the way we teach children subjects in such a compartmentalized manner. If you are considering reading this book for any reason at all, do it! You will definitely get something from it-- probably more than you thought you would.

[Melanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Long ago I went to a seminar by Walter Alvarez and his father on their discovery of the iridium layer and subsequent theory of an asteroid impact causing the extinction of the dinosaurs (except for birds). Pretty amazing. So this history of the Earth sounded really, really interesting to me. Here's a person who really knows his stuff. But he didn't keep to the stuff he knows and he dumbed it down to the point that a fifth grader might be bored. Also his fixation on what he calls "big history" is more than a little annoying.

I wasn't able to finish the book. Possibly my expectations were too high. Possibly I am too well informed about both science and history. So I'm giving it two stars instead of my normal one for an unreadable book.

I don't recommend this for anyone who has any real interest in this topic or they would already know everything in it.

[Waqar Ahmed · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was, for the time being, my final read on big history. Walter Alvarez is a trained scientist and has written a brilliant book on the dinosaurs and how they lived on Earth.

This one is a brief book on big history and the author divides big history into four regimes, cosmos, earth, life and humanity. The book talks about how the cosmos came into being, and what gifts Earth has given to us, super continents and oceans, and it gives a great perspective on how mountain ranges came into being. In the final chapters, Alvarez talks about how life emerged on Earth and how it has evolved from sea life to land mammals. In the epilogue, the author talks about contingencies and how unpredictable life is and gives a few examples from his family, as well as an interesting example of the Spanish Armada by King Philip of Spain to attack England.

Overall, 4 out of 5 stars.

[Bill Yates · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like Alvarez says, astronomy makes no sense without the Big Bang, geology makes no sense without plate tectonics, and life makes no sense without evolution. I really enjoyed how the book ties together science and history. My only criticism is with the concluding section, "How improbable Are We?" The fact that each of us is the outcome of statistical chance is hardly a great insight. I was expecting something to be said about how improbable it is that we live in a universe and on a planet that supports intelligent life. However, even that is not surprising considering the vast amount of time and possible combinations available in such a vast universe.

[MrKillick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kein schlechtes Buch, aber recht knapp und nichts, was ich nicht schon vorher gewusst hätte.
Interessant am Ende die Betrachtung über Kontingenz: die Anzahl der Menschen, die tatsächlich in die nächste Generation geboren werden ist etwa 10^9. Die Zahl der Menschen, die in die nächste Generation geboren werden könnten (alle genetischen Kombinationsmöglichkeiten eingerechnet) ist etwa 10^25. 10^9 Sandkörner sind zwei Handvoll - 10^25 Sandkörner füllen 10mal den Grand Canyon! Amazing - isn't it?

[Carlos Vadillo · Rating 3 out of 5]

En general me gustan mucho los libros de divulgación científica y este libro me llamó mucho la atención por el hecho de narrar desde lo inicios del universo hasta nuestros días. Solo que el autor se detuvo demasiado hablando de montañas y ríos, entiendo su fascinación por esto por que es geólogo pero siento que dedicó bastante en descripciones de cadenas montañosas al punto de llegar a ser tedioso en estas partes y dejando de un lado la parte de formación del cosmos o del planeta Tierra como cuerpo celeste, lo cual lo tomó muy superficialmente.

[Christopher Byram · Rating 3 out of 5]

I first discovered this book when it was referenced on Khan Academy, in the article 'An Introduction to Big History', in Unit 1, in the course 'World History Project - Origins to the Present'. The article states that the author, Álvarez, is not a historian and does not use David Christian's "threshold of increasing complexity" as part of his Big History. Instead, he structures his course and his Big History around four regimes: the Cosmos, Earth, Life, and Humanity.

[Heston · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a great book for someone who has no foundational understanding of the systems of evolution, geology, or plate tectonics. I enjoyed the book, and would recommend it for pretty much anyone. If you're educated in the subjects listed above, you may find this a bit elementary, but still entertaining.

The book is well constructed, and easy to follow.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

Walter Alvarez is the scientist who discovered the 66 million year old K-T layer, which marked the extinction of the dinosaurs. Here he delves into the concepts of continuity and contingency, blowing the reader’s mind about how unlikely a chance their was in our very existence. East to read and very interesting, you’ll be thanking your lucky stars that you’re alive to read this book!

[Heidi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very instructional about historical sciences. Lots of useful information about mountains and minerals. It is a bit dry- so I recommend it for people who like science, especially geology. The illustrations were excellent- and certainly added to the book. Worth reading, especially if you enjoy and are knowledgeable about the natural sciences.

[Neal Sumerlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

We chose this for our science book group, and were mostly disappointed. It might better serve a group that wasn't already pretty well-informed about most of what was here. Good primer on middle-school science, but not very deep.

[Chad Kwiatkowski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly insightful journey into how we got to where we are today. This book makes you realize the interconnectedness of cosmic, earth, and human history in a way you would have never previously imagined. Well worth the time it takes to read, you will come out a changed person. Enjoy!

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book in all aspects. Well written, good coverage of the subject, extensive amount of information in a reasonably small volume. If you are interested in the history of Earth, live, humans, this book is for you.

[Willie Shakes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Walter Alvarez knows how to take complex topics and make them clear and understandable. Anyone who ever has questioned their existence and asked “how did I get here?” should read this book. A very good picture of how fragile life is and how amazingly lucky we are to be here on planet earth.