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Voyages Through Time
The Beginning: Voyages Through Time
Traces the history of life on Earth from the origins of the planet, through the development and extinction of a variety of life forms, to the end of the latest Ice Age and the appearance of modern humans. Reprint.
Paperback
First published September 25, 2003
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About the author
Peter Ackroyd
184 books1,494 followersPeter Ackroyd CBE is an English novelist and biographer with a particular interest in the history and culture of London.
Peter Ackroyd's mother worked in the personnel department of an engineering firm, his father having left the family home when Ackroyd was a baby. He was reading newspapers by the age of 5 and, at 9, wrote a play about Guy Fawkes. Reputedly, he first realized he was gay at the age of 7.
Ackroyd was educated at St. Benedict's, Ealing and at Clare College, Cambridge, from which he graduated with a double first in English. In 1972, he was a Mellon Fellow at Yale University in the United States. The result of this fellowship was Ackroyd's Notes for a New Culture, written when he was only 22 and eventually published in 1976. The title, a playful echo of T. S. Eliot's Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1948), was an early indication of Ackroyd's penchant for creatively exploring and reexamining the works of other London-based writers.
Ackroyd's literary career began with poetry, including such works as London Lickpenny (1973) and The Diversions of Purley (1987). He later moved into fiction and has become an acclaimed author, winning the 1998 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for the biography Thomas More and being shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1987.
Ackroyd worked at The Spectator magazine between 1973 and 1977 and became joint managing editor in 1978. In 1982 he published The Great Fire of London, his first novel. This novel deals with one of Ackroyd's great heroes, Charles Dickens, and is a reworking of Little Dorrit. The novel set the stage for the long sequence of novels Ackroyd has produced since, all of which deal in some way with the complex interaction of time and space, and what Ackroyd calls "the spirit of place". It is also the first in a sequence of novels of London, through which he traces the changing, but curiously consistent nature of the city. Often this theme is explored through the city's artists, and especially its writers.
Ackroyd has always shown a great interest in the city of London, and one of his best known works, London: The Biography, is an extensive and thorough discussion of London through the ages.
His fascination with London literary and artistic figures is also displayed in the sequence of biographies he has produced of Ezra Pound (1980), T. S. Eliot (1984), Charles Dickens (1990), William Blake (1995), Thomas More (1998), Chaucer (2004), William Shakespeare (2005), and J. M. W. Turner. The city itself stands astride all these works, as it does in the fiction.
From 2003 to 2005, Ackroyd wrote a six-book non-fiction series (Voyages Through Time), intended for readers as young as eight. This was his first work for children. The critically acclaimed series is an extensive narrative of key periods in world history.
Early in his career, Ackroyd was nominated a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1984 and, as well as producing fiction, biography and other literary works, is also a regular radio and television broadcaster and book critic.
In the New Year's honours list of 2003, Ackroyd was awarded the CBE.
Peter Ackroyd's mother worked in the personnel department of an engineering firm, his father having left the family home when Ackroyd was a baby. He was reading newspapers by the age of 5 and, at 9, wrote a play about Guy Fawkes. Reputedly, he first realized he was gay at the age of 7.
Ackroyd was educated at St. Benedict's, Ealing and at Clare College, Cambridge, from which he graduated with a double first in English. In 1972, he was a Mellon Fellow at Yale University in the United States. The result of this fellowship was Ackroyd's Notes for a New Culture, written when he was only 22 and eventually published in 1976. The title, a playful echo of T. S. Eliot's Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1948), was an early indication of Ackroyd's penchant for creatively exploring and reexamining the works of other London-based writers.
Ackroyd's literary career began with poetry, including such works as London Lickpenny (1973) and The Diversions of Purley (1987). He later moved into fiction and has become an acclaimed author, winning the 1998 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for the biography Thomas More and being shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1987.
Ackroyd worked at The Spectator magazine between 1973 and 1977 and became joint managing editor in 1978. In 1982 he published The Great Fire of London, his first novel. This novel deals with one of Ackroyd's great heroes, Charles Dickens, and is a reworking of Little Dorrit. The novel set the stage for the long sequence of novels Ackroyd has produced since, all of which deal in some way with the complex interaction of time and space, and what Ackroyd calls "the spirit of place". It is also the first in a sequence of novels of London, through which he traces the changing, but curiously consistent nature of the city. Often this theme is explored through the city's artists, and especially its writers.
Ackroyd has always shown a great interest in the city of London, and one of his best known works, London: The Biography, is an extensive and thorough discussion of London through the ages.
His fascination with London literary and artistic figures is also displayed in the sequence of biographies he has produced of Ezra Pound (1980), T. S. Eliot (1984), Charles Dickens (1990), William Blake (1995), Thomas More (1998), Chaucer (2004), William Shakespeare (2005), and J. M. W. Turner. The city itself stands astride all these works, as it does in the fiction.
From 2003 to 2005, Ackroyd wrote a six-book non-fiction series (Voyages Through Time), intended for readers as young as eight. This was his first work for children. The critically acclaimed series is an extensive narrative of key periods in world history.
Early in his career, Ackroyd was nominated a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1984 and, as well as producing fiction, biography and other literary works, is also a regular radio and television broadcaster and book critic.
In the New Year's honours list of 2003, Ackroyd was awarded the CBE.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 5, 2019
I did not like this book. Most of the books about evolution and the formation of the earth never agree on important subjects, and I don't see where they get their information from.
January 4, 2019
This is a brief survey of the natural history of the earth from its beginning through the dawn of humanity. It's probably written for middle schoolers.
I have never been particularly interested in dinosaurs, etc. but the beginning of this book was so engaging and poetic that it turned a switch in my brain, making me interested in the formation of the earth, the beginnings of life and all aspects of prehistory. The rest of the book's prose wasn't anything special, but that sense of wonder remained with me as I read about how life evolved. It left me wanting to read more.
I have never been particularly interested in dinosaurs, etc. but the beginning of this book was so engaging and poetic that it turned a switch in my brain, making me interested in the formation of the earth, the beginnings of life and all aspects of prehistory. The rest of the book's prose wasn't anything special, but that sense of wonder remained with me as I read about how life evolved. It left me wanting to read more.
July 27, 2016
Description: The Beginning is a journey through the creation and development of earth and its land and water features and the animals and eventually people.
Genre: Informational - History
Intended Audience: 6th - 8th Grade
Curriculum Connection: This book can be used in a history or science class depending on how it is used. When learning about prehistoric events, this gives a good overview. At the beginning of each chapter, a running timeline keeps track of the periods and eons. In science, specific topics can be explored including evolution or animal classifications for example.
Personal Reaction: I found this to be a very interesting read. There is a lot of information presented and has a variety of topics covered. Since this is an informational book, I enjoyed the reference material that students can use as they read. There is a glossary of terms, animal trees, and the aforementioned timelines among others.
Assessment of Visual Appeal: The pictures in this book are realistic. They are drawings, but as an informational book, everything is lifelike and to scale. The chapters on the different animals groups are fabulous because of the animal pictures. Since many of these are extinct, it is even more fascinating to imagine what they did look like.
Genre: Informational - History
Intended Audience: 6th - 8th Grade
Curriculum Connection: This book can be used in a history or science class depending on how it is used. When learning about prehistoric events, this gives a good overview. At the beginning of each chapter, a running timeline keeps track of the periods and eons. In science, specific topics can be explored including evolution or animal classifications for example.
Personal Reaction: I found this to be a very interesting read. There is a lot of information presented and has a variety of topics covered. Since this is an informational book, I enjoyed the reference material that students can use as they read. There is a glossary of terms, animal trees, and the aforementioned timelines among others.
Assessment of Visual Appeal: The pictures in this book are realistic. They are drawings, but as an informational book, everything is lifelike and to scale. The chapters on the different animals groups are fabulous because of the animal pictures. Since many of these are extinct, it is even more fascinating to imagine what they did look like.
November 30, 2011
Evolution. Good, easy to understand look at our Earth and the time periods. Filled with pictures and little snippets of information.
You can hear the author express some doubt as to which creature might have come before others with the way he phrases things. But in all, a good reference book.
You can hear the author express some doubt as to which creature might have come before others with the way he phrases things. But in all, a good reference book.
April 13, 2007
Lucid, well laid out, not overwhelming.
February 13, 2017
Great pictures!
March 31, 2012
very well done..really full of alot of information easily digested with great colorful pictures
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews