Wednesday, September 13, 2017

Book Review - What On Earth Evolved?, Christopher Lloyd

What On Earth Evolved?, Christopher Lloyd (Image Source - Google)
Somebody give me a medal, please!

For, the very act of reading through this book and finishing it demands a lot of attention and feels like an achievement by itself. Not that it is boring or poorly written. It is just that amount of facts contained in this book, the unbelievable amount of research that would have taken to compile them all, are both factors that can make one go limp with astonishment.

In this book, the famed world history author Christopher Lloyd tries to reproduce the magic of his other renowned work ‘What On Earth Happened’ and has succeeded in his quest to a large extent. Identifying 100 species out of the millions of creatures, listing them one by one in the order of importance - in terms of their contribution to the evolution of our planet – Lloyd has done a stupendous job. From ‘lowly’ life-forms like viruses and bacteria – only in terms of size – to the now-extinct species of dinosaurs, from the species that we can reconstruct in our mind’s eye only with the help of fossils to the pleasingly beautiful roses and lotuses, this book deals with a wide array of species.

With the book being divided into a hundred chapters, one per species, this book can be used as a reference material or a relaxed read. If you’re a person interested in evolution, history of the planet, the plant/animal lives or, simply in general science, then this is a book that you must have in your shelf. Amazing work!

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