Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #472469 in Books
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

From the Back Cover
"Absorbing. . . . Cinematic. . . . The ultimate travel book, a guidebook that should be read by every person who wants to really know and understand the place we live on. . . . This enticing book deserves to be read many times over." --The New York Times

"Riveting. . . . Wonderfully engaging . . . tackles the biggest rock of all and how its geology has affected the lives of those who inhabit it. . . . In Fortey's hands, geology is a tale of high drama and action." --Chicago Tribune

"Crammed with interesting material, vividly and colorfully conveyed. . . . Fortey is a writer with a gift for making natural history come alive. . . . A delightful book to dip into, a treasure-house of mind-expanding lore." --Los Angeles Times

"Spectacular. . . . A tour de force. . . . For the science it covers, the human stories and the leisurely style in which it conveys vast amounts of information, Earth deserves to be a bestseller." --New Scientist

"Enthralling. . . . Fortey's writing is lovely. There's poetry in [his] words. . . . His gift for description is both intellectual and imaginative." --The Village Voice

"A whopping read even if you are scientifically and geologically impaired." --The New York Post

"[Fortey] takes the reader on a journey around the world including Mount Vesuvius, the Alps, Newfoundland, Los Angeles and the Deccan Traps in India. He is an eloquent guide."
--Scientific American

"Engaging. . . . With a naturalist's view of the land and a geologist's understanding of gradual change, Fortey does an admirable job of bringing the field to life." --Science News

“A dazzling voyage of discovery showing how our ancient, battered planet endlessly recycles itself.” --The Sunday Times

“Fortey illuminates the world we know, and enriches our understanding of its past and future. Enjoy this remarkable book.” --Financial Times

“Dazzling . . . Important and timely. We now look at the world in a different way, and Fortey provides a tour of the high ground and the hot spots. This book could be classed as history, or as science, or science history, or even travel. Forget all categories: it is simply a splendid book.” --The Guardian

“A winning combination of bouncy prose and authoritative science has made Richard Fortey’s previous natural history books best sellers. His latest offering deserves the same success.” --Literary Review

“Richard Fortey is the Raymond Chandler of science writing. His prose is angelic, his phrases well-turned. . . . And though Earth is no murder story, it is a mystery book and, in its own way, a thriller.” --The Economist

Customer Reviews

Subterranean Power at its Best!
What I like about geological studies of this kind is that I come away better informed as to the tremendous physical forces that have gone into - and will continue to do so - the rearranging and remaking of the earth's surface. Fortey works from the scientific premise that the earth's crust (lithosphere) consists of a series of interconnecting and interlocking continental and oceanic plates of varying depths that floats of a weaker zone called the asthenosphere. From this position, the author proceeds on a worldwide tour of different sites to test out the theory that the earth's crust or top layer is really a composite of interspersed rock zones that help to explain a number of interesting natural phenomena. From the volcanic ruins of Pompeii, to the twisted majesty of the Alps, to the ancient ranges of Newfoundland, to the seismic rumblings of the San Andreas Fault, Fortey produces convincing evidence that the world is a storehouse of important geological wonders and surprises. While a lot of what Fortey says about these various findings is old science, the easy-to-follow and colorful manner in which he lays out the data suggests that his audience is really the wider, unschooled public, who are learning about these big ideas for the first time. First, the rock record, as seen on outcroppings, escarpments and exposed mountainsides, tells a story of significant tectonic movement and upheaval over eons. The evidence is quite compelling that the edges of continents can override, undercut, and even separate from each other. Basalt, the result of volcanic eruptions within these intercontinental zones, is one of many rocks that have been transformed as a result of enormous tectonic jarring. Much of our understanding and use of minerals is derived from the earth deciding to reveal its inner nature. Second, Fortey shows how the exposure of the earth's inner composition has led to the development of its countless surface features like soil, climate, river drainage, and location of community. Overall, I found this book rich in knowledge, sharp in perception, and clear in its intent to make the reader better informed as to the wonderful physical world he or she lives in. Even for an old-timer like myself, picking up a popular history like this helped to resharpen my awareness of how our world works at another level.

Rockin' round the world
Studying geology can be fun. Trips across the world, meeting new people, sharing insights and resolving mysteries of Earth's processes. There is, of course, the downside. Lava flows that shred boots, impossibly complex rock formations and bays that simply disappear during a seven-year interval between visits. If you have a writing gift, as Richard Fortey does, you can impart all these aspects of the science to a wide audience. This book does that admirably - and Fortey's not even a geologist!

Fortey's study of fossil trilobites has led him far afield. Since those bizarre creatures persisted for over three hundred million years, their remains are well distributed in both time and space. In studying them, Fortey has made the entire planet his backyard. That intimacy and his wide vision combine to produce this matchless work. From the opening pages he combines human history and the Earth's antics in an evocative theme. Vesuvius, that town killer, becomes a symbol of the dynamics of the world beneath our feet. Volcanoes also produce rich soils, luring humans up their slopes to plant crops. That juxtaposition typifies how geology has driven human society.

Geology, Fortey reminds us, is a young science, as active as the world it studies. He traces the thoughts of investigators over the past centuries. Through that time, two aspects of the Earth's dynamics eluded them. How fast was the planet cooling and what caused the bizarre formations they studied? It took physics, not geology, to solve the first - radioactive elements kept the interior hot. The second, plate tectonics, resolved most of the second. The notion that the crust "floats" on a sea of magma led to better understanding of deep processes. Plate tectonics, in Fortey's view, is the key to unlock nearly all geology's basic question. It explains "suspect terrain" and anomalous mountain formation. It also demonstrates why some areas are earthquake and volcano prone. Charles Lyell's "uniformitarianism", Fortey stresses, is basically correct. We can't observe directly many of the forces shaping the world.

What shapes the world, Fortey, continues, shapes our lives as well. How much of our history is due to Africa's pushing northward into Europe? What forced the ancient peoples of the Western Hemisphere to create their unique societies? Is the landscape of Southern Asia a foundation for the famous Silk Road? Tilting landscapes give us our rivers and the communities established on their banks. How many times has the Mississippi drowned towns, or abandoned them to isolation? Fortey keeps us aware of how our existence is shaped by the rocks beneath us.

With sets of stunning colour photographs and drawings to enhance the finely crafted text, this book's worthy of your attention. Fortey is always a compelling read, and this book stands among his best. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

A good introductory book on geology
Fortey's book uses a number of different locations (Newfoundland, Hawaii, Vesuvius, etc.) to illustrate the profound effect of plate tectonics in shaping our world and our lives, providing something of an overview of the geological process. As an introduction to geology, the book has much to recommend it: the author's style is vivid and entertaining, there are four sections of beautiful colour plates in addition to numerous black and white illustrations covering nearly every location and rock/mineral mentioned, and the binding of the book itself is very handsome.

There are, however, two problems with the text. The first problem is that Fortey seems to occasionally forget that he is writing for a general audience, and he uses technical terms without adequate explanation (an encyclopedic dictionary helps), and the second problem is a matter of taste; Fortey makes relentless digs at the human species at inopportune moments. For example, in the concluding sentences of a chapter about the mechanism of plate tectonics, he writes "Mankind is no more that [sic] a parasitic tick gorging himself on temporary plenty while the seas are low and the climate comparatively clement. But the present arrangement of land and sea will change, and with it our brief supremacy." If it were not for these inappropriate digressions, I would have given the book five stars. It is nevertheless a worthwhile read.