Story Of Life, The

How did life begin? What was 'snowball earth'? Why did the dinosaurs go extinct? Are we all descended from 'African Eve'? Will humans be responsible for the next major extinction? All these, and many other questions, are addressed in this fascinating book. The story unfolds with the formation of the earth around four thousand million years ago, Life emerges a hundred million years later, and it took another fifteen million years for more complex life to appear. Periods of relatively calm, like a kaleidoscope held still, were punctuated by five vigorous shakes of the kaleidoscope representing major extinctions, with innumerable minor jolts along the way. Then five million years ago an able ape evolved that gradually came to dominate and control the other animals and plants. The future lies in the hands of a single species.