History of Life.

Richard Cowen

Blackwell Science, 2000 - Science - 432 pages

History of Life is not just for students, but for everyone interested in the history of life on our planet. Paleontology, the study of ancient life, requires some knowledge of biology, ecology, chemistry, physics and mathematics. However, the average person can have access to it without deep scientific training.

This book serves three audiences: it is an introduction to palaeontology; a general education course that introduces nonspecialists to science and scientific thought; and an introduction to the history of life for biologists who know a lot about the present and little about the past.

The author's aim is ambitious: to take you to the edges of our knowledge in palaeontology; to show you how life has evolved on Earth; and to explain how we have constructed the history of that evolution from the record of rocks and fossils.
Web page tied to use of book boxes.
Case studies.
End chapter questions.
End chapter references.

What people are saying

Review: History of Life

User Review  - Nathan - Goodreads

Loving it, right from the preface which talks about how we decide what we know in science: I've suggested some of my own. You can accept these or not, as you wish. The question you face is that of a ...

About the author

Richard Cowen learned how to write and to think critically at Cambridge University, and how to teach and think creatively at the University of California, Davis. He received a Distinguished Teaching Award in 1993 and designed the course "History of Life" there. The book was written specifically for that course, and has gone on to become a best-selling textbook.

Bibliographic information

• Title: History of Life.
• Author: Richard Cowen
• Edition: 3, illustrated
• Publisher: Blackwell Science, 2000
• ISBN: 0632044446, 9780632044443
• Length: 432 pages
• Subjects: Science / Paleontology