Major Events in the History of Life (J. William Schopf ed., 1992)

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ISBN 0-8672-0268-8

Any review of the history of life has a trade-off to make: it must be either superficial or selective. This book takes the latter route (contrast with, say, Richard Fortey's Life: An Unauthorised Biography) in providing just six chapters, each a semi-technical exposition about some aspect of the evolution of life on earth, by an expert in the field.

The first chapter, The Origin of Life, is written by none other than Stanley Miller who, with H. Urey and other colleagues, famously synthesised amino acids and other complex pre-biotic compounds in a hypothesised early-earth environment, simulated in lab glassware.

In the second chapter, about the nature and interpretation of the oldest microbial fossils, Bill Schopf rehearses some of the material which he will later include in his book, Cradle of Life.

Bruce Runnegar takes us through the Ediacarans, the Cambrian Explosion, and some of the weird and wonderful Burgess Shale organisms in chapter three: Evolution of the Earliest Animals.

Unusually for this sort of review, the plant kingdom is not omitted entirely, although it only rates one chapter, the fourth, which focuses upon the Origin and Evolution of the Earliest Land Plants. Despite being particularly interested in plants myself, and fossil spores and pollen in particular, I found this chapter quite hard going. For those who appreciate this subject, there is another whole book devoted to the topic: Plants Invade the Land, edited by Gensel and Edwards.

Chapter 5, A History of Vertebrate Success, is penned by another famous 'name' - John Ostrom, who originally conceived the hot-blooded dinosaur hypothesis so vehemently promoted by his former student, Robert Bakker. In fact, Ostrom is very impressive on this point: his treatment is even-handed and a model of professionally objective restraint.

Finally, Phillip Tobias, takes a look at human evolution. Rather disappointingly, for me, his treatment of the fraught 'out of Africa' question is rather brief, though perhaps this is more a reflection that the text is starting to become a little dated now.

The selection of topics in the book is necessarily idiosyncratic but, for my money, they have been very well-chosen. Each of the essays is written by a master in the field. You can't ask for better than that.

Recommendation: Eccentric, highly readable, authoritative, brilliant ... inspirational. Highly recommended.

Look and Feel: Paperback; good quality paper with high resolution b&w photographs and some good line drawings; well-indexed.

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Major Events in the History of Life (J. William Schopf ed., 1992)

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