A Most Improbable Journey: A Big History of Our Planet and Ourselves

by Walter Alvarez

Overview

"A thrilling synthesis from a brilliant scientist who discovered one of the most important chapters in our history." —Sean B. Carroll

Big History, the field that integrates traditional historical scholarship with scientific insights to study the full sweep of our universe, has so far been the domain of historians. Famed geologist Walter Alvarez—best known for the “Impact Theory” explaining dinosaur extinction—has instead championed a science-first approach to Big History. Here he wields his unique expertise to give us a new appreciation for the incredible occurrences—from the Big Bang to the formation of supercontinents, the dawn of the Bronze Age, and beyond—that have led to our improbable place in the universe.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393355192
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	12/05/2017
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	408,322
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Walter Alvarez, professor of geology at the University of California, Berkeley, received the Penrose Medal, the top honor in geology, and is the best-selling author of T. Rex and the Crater of Doom. He lives in Berkeley, California.

Table of Contents

Prologue

Introduction 3

1 Big History, the Earth, and the Human Situation 5

Cosmos

2 From the Big Bang to Planet Earth 21

Earth

3 Gifts from the Earth 43

4 A Planet with Continents and Oceans 60

5 A Tale of Two Mountain Ranges 79

6 Remembering Ancient Rivers 96

Life

7 Your Personal Record of Life History 117

Humanity

8 The Great Journey 137

9 Being Human 157

Epilogue

10 What Was the Chance of All This Happening? 179

Appendix 1 Further Resources 199

Appendix 2 Figure Sources 210

Acknowledgments 215

Notes 217

Index 237

Editorial Reviews

"A wonderful account of Big History by a geologist. And not just any geologist, but the geologist who showed that the dinosaurs were done in by an unlucky asteroid strike! Alvarez writes with precision and great charm. And he reminds us how absurdly improbable is the role we play in this colossal story, and how many things had to go right for you and me to exist."

David Christian

"Fans of Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything will appreciate Alvarez’s enthusiastic, clearly written tour of contingencies that have shaped our world, starting with the origins of life on Earth."

Science News

"[Alvarez] revels in the unlikely reality of life on Earth . . . enabling readers to experience the power of Big History."

Science

"Imagine a campfire chat with your favorite teacher sharing the biggest story you ever heard. A Most Improbable Journey is a thrilling synthesis from a brilliant scientist who discovered one of the most important chapters in our history. An instant classic."

Sean B. Carroll

"Engaging."

Nature

"For the past three decades, Walter Alvarez has been at the center of a revolution in how scientists think about the history of life and the Earth. In A Most Improbable Journey he gives us the biggest history of all, going from the Big Bang to our own place on the planet. Lively and profound and flavored with his infectious enthusiasm, Alvarez shows how each of us has won a truly massive lottery just to be a sentient being on this planet."

Neil Shubin

"[Alvarez] revels in the unlikely reality of life on Earth . . . enabling readers to experience the power of Big History."

Science

"Engaging."

Nature Lib

06/15/2016
If you're familiar with the "Impact Theory," which blames dinosaur extinction on a crash-landed asteroid, then you're familiar with Berkeley geologist Alvarez; he originated the idea. Here he argues that Big History, which studies all past history to contextualize human existence, should begin with science.

Library Journal

Geologist Walter Alvarez considers "big history" as he links humanity to the chain of events that the big bang began, all leading to you. Adam Verner sounds amazed as he narrates both the science and the more human parts. Each facet of the discussion includes relatable anecdotes, such as one about the life of a mule skinner involved in building the Mount Wilson Observatory who eventually earned an honorary doctorate for his observations there. Verner’s lively narration infuses topics that are often dry with energy. He even has fun with humorous material such as a comparison of nature's formations of mountains to the making of a very sloppy sandwich. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

DECEMBER 2016 - AudioFile

2016-09-21
Count yourself lucky that you live on a planet with gravityand silicon.Well-known in paleontological circles for his description of the Chicxulub impact crater, which he explored in the bestselling T. rex and the Crater of Doom (1997), Alvarez (Geology/Univ. of California; The Mountains of Saint Francis: Discovering the Geologic Events that Shaped Our Earth, 2009, etc.) is at ease writing about geology, never an easy subject to treat with much grace. Here he adds a wrinkle: a garden variety geologist, he writes, will be interested in a particular mountain range, while a geologist guided by Big History might want to understand the whole sweep of continental motions throughout all of Earth history that has given rise to all the mountain ranges. The inclusion of environmental history in human history at a very deep scale of time has proven fruitful and has yielded good books by, among others, Richard Fortey and Colin Tudge. However, theres a bit of a buzzword quality to the whole Big History enterprise, and at times it seems as if Alvarez has adopted it as a slogan in this glancing survey: We usually take our wonderful Earth for granted[b]ut a Big History sense of its distant past can only leave us amazed and grateful that such a violent and chancy history has given us this perfect place to live. Granted, the human presence on the Earth is the tiniest fraction of a fraction of planetary time, and the fact that grains of sand are oriented in a certain direction in the Rockies has only a peripheralthough interestingbearing on how engineers blasted a railroad path through the mountains 150 years ago. A little of the gee-whiz stuff goes a long way, as when Alvarez notes that contingency is everywhere in human historymeaning, in other words, that you couldnt have planned it if you tried. The science is impeccable, the history a tad simplistic. An Ascent of Manlike approach to the subject of Big History would be most welcome, but this isnt quite it.

Kirkus Reviews