Planet Earth : a beginner's guide

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The result, Planet Earth: A Beginner's Guide, is an expedition into the origins, evolution, and workings of our home planet in which John Gribbin does what he does best: takes 4.5 billion years of geological history and digs out the essential bits, from the physics of Newton and the geology of Wegener to the environmentalism of Lovelock. Along the journey, he uses stories from history and more current events to bring the science to a human level. Gribbin's introductory guidebook -- very much a first step into geology and geography for the uninitiated -- is filled with his lively voice and unique view, as he takes on the subject of the Earth from an astronomer's perspective.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

The "Oneworld Beginners' Guides" series targets curious readers and promises original approaches to subjects in affordable books dealing with contemporary ideas. Gribbin (visiting fellow, astronomy, Univ. of Sussex, UK) succeeds admirably in this small, well-written introductory work. The author emphasizes the cosmic origin of the planet and its features, and brings Earth's history to the present. Gribbin writes in a conversational style, defining complex scientific terms unobtrusively. He includes the expanding Earth theory and makes a case for biological evolution as fact. Presumably to keep the book's cost down, there are no illustrations. A reader needs a basic understanding of world geography to benefit from this presentation. Trying to explain the workings of global tectonics using narrative instead of maps is a challenge to any writer. Yet Gribbin seamlessly connects the hot springs and valleys of the Tibetan plateau to the bend in the Hawaiian-Emperor chain of seamounts in the Pacific Ocean. There is almost no documentation, and the reader cannot go deeper with most of the bibliography titles. This thoughtful, engaging book is appropriate for lay audiences, but its style and brevity render it optional for academic library collections. Summing Up: Highly recommended. General readers. L. S. Zipp formerly, State University of New York College at Geneseo