For decades, our principal account of life on Earth has remained unchanged in spite of the flaws that various studies have exposed. Using their own groundbreaking research, scientists Joe Kirschvink and Peter Ward here re-write the story of life on Earth, from the very beginning. Starting with the formation of the Solar System, an estimated 4.6 billion years ago, A New History of Life begins by showing how life can travel from planet to planet and recounts how the first life on Earth in fact began on Mars. A vexation for many scientists, including Darwin, was not the inception of life, but its sudden growth and the speed with which species propagated. Ward and Kirschvink explore how the presence of sulphur-eating microbes was responsible for delaying the rise of animals for billions of years, and reveal what it was that forced fish out of the sea in the first place. They examine how developments in the environment led to the planet freezing over many times before the emergence of monstrous dinosaurs and other giant animals, and look at the reasons for these great beasts' eventual extinction, not an asteroid but a volcanic eruption that caused the biggest greenhouse effect in history. Finally charting the course of human evolution, from the first mutations, they will then tackle when the end of Earth life's history will take place and whether it can possibly continue. Together, Ward and Kirschvink set out to prove how much of what we know should be unlearned, and that the true history of Earth is much more surprising and wonderful than we could ever have imagined.
