Product Description

How old is the universe? When did life on earth begin? What happened to the dinosaurs? How was the moon created? How did ancient Chinese science shape the modern world? How did Islam trigger globalization? Are humans really superior to other living things? And how can you fit the complete history of the planet into one pocket-sized book? These are just some of the questions answered in Christopher Lloyd's acclaimed 13.7 billion year history - now in brief. In this thrill-ride across millennia and continents, the complete history of the planet comes to life: from the Earth's fiery birth to its near-obliteration in the Triassic period, and from the first signs of human life to the tentative future of a world with a burgeoning population and a global warming crisis. Covering a wide range of topics including astrophysics, zoology, and sociology, and complete with maps and illustrations, What on Earth Happened? In Brief is the endlessly entertaining story of the planet, life, and people.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17013 in Books
• Published on: 2009-06-01
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Review
'Compelling remarkably far-reaching and even-handed' Sunday Times 'An ambitious history of the planet from the Big Bang to the present day' Daily Telegraph Books of the Year

Review
"This book should be on every child's Christmas list...."

Review
"A charming book.... remarkably far-reaching and even-handed"

Customer Reviews

A must have item!
Who say's history is boring? Here we learn how past history will shape things to come...

Christopher Lloyd's book is a complete walk through of history from the big bang to the present day.

Providing history with such a holistic overview is a powerful reason to buy this book and should be a 'must have' item for every Year 7 school child in the UK studying history. It provides the reader with a true sense of history over time and space and the interrelationship with the natural environment - something that most children don't get an appreciation of in school. (I should know being an ex-teacher!)

The flexibility of the book is something that stands out - on the one hand it is an excellent reference book that will not date, on the other hand the author's easy and amusing narrative style makes this also a very easy "pick up and read when you like" coffee table book!

For me, it was a thoroughly enjoyable read from cover to cover. A gift for any occassion that will not fail to disappoint.

What On Earth Happend by Christopher Lloyd
This is a fabulous book ... an important book ... not just a history book but something that gives a fantastic perspective, a glimpse of how we got here. The narrative flows through key points of the story of planet, the life on the planet and critically how humans fit into this story in the extraordinarily brief moment we've been
around. It weaves together the disparate bits of knowledge you may have along with much that probably you don't know into something that connects & illuminates. The whole is even greater than the sum of the parts ... indeed it is quite a moving experience at times and certainly enormously stimulating and relevant to many of the big questions we ask; both philosphical, political and simply everyday curiousities.
The book also has user friendly lay out making it easy to use as a reference or a good read. There are top ten lists e.g. key events, people, fruits & seeds, creatures etc and time is condensed & colour coded onto a 24hr clock. Eye opening and working on a number of different levels, I can thoroughly recommend this to everyone.What on Earth Happened?: The Complete Story of the Planet, Life and People from the Big Bang to the Present Day

Very good...but
I found my opinion on this book swinging from negative to positive and back again as I read it. This is an excellent HISTORY book, but it's very weak when it comes to an understanding of science.

The first issue came with the description of how our universe came into existence. Leaving aside the fact that it crudely describes gravity as "glue", I found the presentation, several times throughout the book, of the theory that Earth collided with another planet called Theia to create our moon as if it were fact, rather than being merely one of several plausible theories, to be bordering on dishonesty.

I set this aside though as the book proceeded further into our history, because I started to appreciate that this being the 'in brief' version of this book that the author valued brevity ahead of absolute honesty in some areas. I began to thoroughly enjoy it from that point onwards and strongly admire the way it presents the history of various early civilisations in an easy to understand chronological manner, that many history books struggle to manage...often you're left with only a sketchy appreciation of what happened to who first, but this book handles this problem well, particularly in the way it will reference itself at points where overlaps occur so you can go back to an earlier page and re-read a section relevant to the section you're now at.

Unfortunately the book lets itself down again towards the end when the author starts to discuss modern problems of life. The information presented regarding CO2 levels and climate change feel as if it's been taken straight from the IPCC website, especially when it starts to mention a system of carbon trading as a way forward. This part is nonsense and immediately brought my earlier misgivings back to the surface. CO2 does not drive climate change, despite what the politically motivated officials behind the Kyoto protocol would have you believe, and unfortunately the author seems to have bought their drivel hook, line and sinker. He mentions CO2 repeatedly in the charts at the very rear of the book also, as if it were the only factor important in heating our planet...it may interest him to know that the sun has a lot more to do with it. Reliable research has shown a direct correlation between sun spots and cloud cover being the main factor in driving climate change...research which, by the way, had difficulty finding funding because it contradicts the current political orthodoxy which promotes CO2 levels over all else.

This unfortunatley tarnishes all the good work that's gone into this book because, with history not being my strongest suite, I now find myself wondering how reliable some of the other information is when he gets it so wrong in other areas...

I notice that the most popular reviews on amazon for this book are identical for both this, the brief version, and the more complete book and have managed to attract around 30 positive votes each to keep them on the front page, despite this book being puplished for only a few months now, making me wonder both about the reliability and impartiality of those reviews and also whether I should bother reading the complete version.*

To sum up...this is an enjoyable and well structured history book, but in areas of science, it's highly dubious. Bill Brysons book, "A Short History of Nearly Everything" approaches the same subject but more intelligently, but to give Christopher Lloyd his due, he presents the history in a better fashion. Christopher Lloyd (no relation to the actor surely;P) would do well to research climatology. The chapter on global warming in the book "Scared to Death" would be an excellent place to start.




*Edit- I was interested to see how quickly an entirely independent review (ie. this one) could attract votes here...so far, after several days of being here... albeit not being shown on the first page which I appreciate means that perhaps no-one has even read this yet;)...not one vote, either positive or negative. I am fairly suspicious now that these reviews are easily manipulated by biased/interested parties wanting to increase sales.