Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Book in excellent unread/unused condition. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> Ten years ago I began researching a book about how the earth works. This was to be a counterpart to my earlier history of life on our home planet: Life: An Unauthorised Biography. The problem was going to be how to explain succinctly and within the confines of a book a topic as vast as the structure of the earth. The choice was clear: either I had to wave my arms on the grand scale or I had to focus down on special places that typified the whole. The subtitle of this book – an intimate his- tory-makes it clear that I chose the latter path. Finding geological sites that would lead to an understanding of the big picture was a pleasurable challenge. My approach was to take a histor- ical one to show how the eyes of our scientific forebears took in a land- scape or how they read the rocks. The history of thought about an important geological site offered a path through a complex labyrinth of facts that could eventually lead on to a satisfying explanation.