Shaking the Tree: Readings from Nature in the History of Life

by Henry Gee (Editor)

Nature has published news about the history of life ever since its first issue in 1869, in which T. H. Huxley ("Darwin's bulldog") wrote about Triassic dinosaurs. In recent years, the field has enjoyed a tremendous flowering due to new investigative techniques drawn from cladistics (a revolutionary method for charting evolutionary relationships) and molecular biology.

Shaking the Tree brings together nineteen review articles written for Nature over the past decade by many of the major figures in paleontology and evolution, from Stephen Jay Gould to Simon Conway Morris. Each article is brief, accessible, and opinionated, providing "shoot from the hip" accounts of the latest news and debates. Topics covered include major extinction events, homeotic genes and body plans, the origin and evolution of the primates, and reconstructions of phylogenetic trees for a wide variety of groups. The editor, Henry Gee, gives new commentary and updated references.

Shaking the Tree is a one-stop resource for engaging overviews of the latest research in the history of life on Earth.

Genres: Nonfiction

418 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Henry Gee's next book The Wonder of Life on earth, illustrated by Raxenne Maniquiz, is out on 5 February 2026. His other books include The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire, A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth (winner of the 2022 Royal Society Science Book Prize) and The Science of Middle earth. His books have been translated into more than 25 languages. He is represented by Jill Grinberg Literary Management and lives in Cromer, England.