The Story of Earth: The First 4.5 Billion Years, from Stardust to Living Planet

Hailed by The New York Times for writing “with wonderful clarity about science . . . that effortlessly teaches as it zips along,” nationally bestselling author Robert M. Hazen offers a radical new approach to Earth history in this intertwined tale of the planet’s living and nonliving spheres. With an astrobiologist’s imagination, a historian’s perspective, and a naturalist’s eye, Hazen calls upon twenty-first-century discoveries that have revolutionized geology and enabled scientists to envision Earth’s many iterations in vivid detail—from the mile-high lava tides of its infancy to the early organisms responsible for more than two-thirds of the mineral varieties beneath our feet. Lucid, controversial, and on the cutting edge of its field, The Story of Earth is popular science of the highest order.

"A sweeping rip-roaring yarn of immense scope, from the birth of the elements in the stars to meditations on the future habitability of our world." -Science

"A fascinating story." -Bill McKibben

• Life on a Young Planet: The First Three Billion Years of Evolution on Earth - Updated Edition (Princeton Science Library)
• A New History of Life: The Radical New Discoveries about the Origins and Evolution of Life on Earth
• Reading the Rocks: The Autobiography of the Earth
• The Practical Geologist: The Introductory Guide to the Basics of Geology and to Collecting and Identifying Rocks
• Prehistoric Life: The Definitive Visual History of Life on Earth
• Science Matters: Achieving Scientific Literacy
• Anthropocene: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)
• The Story of Life in 25 Fossils: Tales of Intrepid Fossil Hunters and the Wonders of Evolution
• The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth's Past Mass Extinctions
• Timefulness: How Thinking Like a Geologist Can Help Save the World