Life on a Young Planet: The First Three Billion Years of Evolution on Earth - Updated Edition (Princeton Science Library)

I noticed some reviews about the book's readability. If you are a habitual reader of something like Scientific American magazine, you should be able to handle this with no problem. I would not recommend it to my friends who don't have at least a college-freshman-level survey course in biology or the equivalent of that in their backgrounds. This book filled in some gaps in what I know about the history of life on the planet. My college biology classes were fifty years ago, and I'm not sure much of anything was said about pre-Cambrian life. I now feel that I have a rough understanding of what is currently known about very early life on the planet. The author made a point of enlivening the discussion with accounts of his trips to remote spots where incredibly ancient fossils may be found.

The book covers a lot of the "nothing happened" period that we have no fossils for and life in any case was primitive, such as cyanobacteria.Several sections read clearly and have good illustrations. Occasionally he gets bogged down with some idea laid out in "if this then that" sequences described only in text. When those meanderings include Latin names of phyla, families etc., it gets to be tedious reading for the non-biologist, who just wants to read "jellyfish" and "sponges" instead of the Latin.The book carries along methodically from period to period, molecular clocks and other evidence based on fossils and similar geological data. Occasionally the steps and mechanism to develop from one stage to another are not clearly outlined. Martian life etc is covered in the end chapters.Biochemistry is not really explained and chemical formulas are not used either. This is typical of books describing photosynthesis and "the great oxygenation event." Publishers assume that scientists know basic biochemistry and others would skip over the chemical aspects if presented in formulas.Slightly better explained, as far as the cyanobacteria go, are the books on Oxygen by Nick Lane and Dan Canfield.Also, if you are not a biologist (I am a chemist) i recommend this book on animals, which do get quite a lot of coverage through the Cambrian, as it describes all the living phyla in detail with pictures, as a sort of crutch to help you through the current book. You can carry it in your pocket even, while reading the main text.The Animal Kingdom: A Very Short Introduction

Very interesting.

Life on a Young Planet by Andrew Knoll: What a brilliant book. Everything you could possibly want to know about the history of the planet and life on it, beautifully, clearly and succinctly explained. No padding. Great writing. I will probably reread this book just to absorb nuances I lost in the first reading. The author explains different opinions on all the divisive topics (like snowball earth) in a fair way and with a kind of organized thinking that's impressive too. And yet he manages to be completely entertaining. And, the author has no agenda (which ruins a book for me). It's a thoroughly lucid picture of the past and present. I'm impressed almost to speechlessness.

Life on a Young Planet covers a (very long) period that is pretty much a closed book to most amateur paleontologists. Andrew Knoll does an excellent job of taking us through the aeons while making the story of life as interesting as it is important. While there are facts and figures to satisfy those in the know about early life, Knoll dumbs it down for the rest of us to a point where it can be hard to put the book down. Highly recommended for anyone who wants to expand their knowledge of earth bioscience back beyond the dinosaurs or even the Burgess Shale.

This book covers the period from the earlies evidence of life to the Cambrian 'explosion'. Along the way you will be amazed at the number of contentious issues that have been raised on every concievable aspect of these developments. While the author is very good at explaining the various arguments (many of which are quite technical), there are so many of them that the reader starts to lose track of where they are. The situation would also be less confusing if the the author were willing to indicate and defend his own position rather then leaving it to the reader to make a choice.This is a good book for those familar with the subject but would totally confuse those new to it.

I was fascinated. I am fairly familiar with the Cambrian fauna and probably know more than most about Pre-Cambrian biology. But this book was just over the top. Never appreciated how much paleontology could be done on bacteria. Incredible. If you have any interest in paleontology of the Pre-Cambrian and don't know a lot of bacteriology, this is a great place to start. Obviously I loved it. Bacteriologist friend borrowed it to possibly use it in his intro course. He knows a lot more than I do.

Life didn't begin with dinosaurs & cave men. Long before T rex the world was home to living creatures, creatures that would evolve into the diverse forms living today. This book does a good job of describing what is known about those early organisms. It also does a good job of introducing the casual reader to the work of the early earth paleontologist.It's worth the read.