Europe: A Natural History

by Tim Flannery

Overview

A tale of cave bears and comet strikes and a hundred million years of history by the bestselling author of Here on Earth: “Marvelous.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

In Europe: A Natural History, world-renowned scientist, explorer, and conservationist Tim Flannery applies the eloquent interdisciplinary approach he used in his ecological histories of Australia and North America to the story of Europe. He begins 100 million years ago, when the continents of Asia, North America, and Africa interacted to create an island archipelago that would later become the Europe we know today. It was on these ancient tropical lands that the first distinctly European organisms evolved. Flannery teaches us about Europe’s midwife toad, which has endured since the continent’s beginning, while elephants, crocodiles, and giant sharks have come and gone. He explores the monumental changes wrought by the devastating comet strike and shows how rapid atmospheric shifts transformed the European archipelago into a single landmass during the Eocene.

As the story moves through millions of years of evolutionary history, Flannery eventually turns to our own species, describing the immense impact humans had on the continent’s flora and fauna—within 30,000 years of our arrival in Europe, the woolly rhino, the cave bear, and the giant elk, among others, would disappear completely. The story continues right up to the present, as Flannery describes Europe’s leading role in wildlife restoration, and then looks ahead to ponder the continent’s future: with advancements in gene editing technology, European scientists are working to recreate some of the continent’s lost creatures, such as the great ox of Europe’s primeval forests and even the woolly mammoth.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802146953
Publisher:	Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Publication date:	05/14/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	915,021
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

Tim Flannery is a scientist, explorer, and conservationist. He has published more than 130 scientific papers and several books, including the #1 international bestseller The Weather Makers, Throwim Way Leg, Here on Earth, and Among the Islands. He was named Australian of the Year in 2007, and from 2001 to 2013, he was Australia’s Climate Commissioner.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

I The Tropical Archipelago

100-34 Million Years Ago

1 Destination Europe 9

2 Hateg's First Explorer 14

3 Dwarfish, Degenerate Dinosaurs 23

4 Islands at the Crossroads of the World 27

5 Origins and Ancient Europeans 31

6 The Midwife Toad 36

7 The Great Catastrophe 43

8 A Post-Apocalyptic World 48

9 New Dawn, New Invasions 54

10 Messel-a Window into the Past 62

11 The European Great Coral Reef 67

12 Tales from the Sewers of Paris 71

II Becoming Continental

34-2.6 Million Years Ago

13 La Grande Coupure 81

14 Cats, Birds and Olms 89

15 The Marvellous Miocene 94

16 A Miocene Bestiary 102

17 Europe's Extraordinary Apes 110

18 The First Upright Apes 114

19 Lakes and Islands 122

20 The Messinian Salinity Crisis 129

21 The Pliocene-Time of Laocoon 133

III Ice Ages

2.6 Million-38,000 Years Ago

22 The Pleistocene-Gateway to the Modern World 145

23 Hybrids-Europe, the Mother of Metissage 154

24 Return of the Upright Apes 162

25 Neanderthals 168

26 Bastards 178

27 The Cultural Revolution 184

28 Of Assemblages and Elephants 191

29 Other Temperate Giants 198

30 Ice Beasts 204

31 What the Ancestors Drew 213

IV Human Europe

38,000 Years Ago to the Future

32 The Balance Tips 225

33 The Domesticators 233

34 From the Horse to Roman Failure 239

35 Emptying the Islands 245

36 The Cairn and the Storm 251

37 Survivors 259

38 Europe's Global Expansion 267

39 New Europeans 272

40 Animals of Empire 277

41 Europe's Bewolfing 285

42 Europe's Silent Spring 293

43 Rewilding 298

44 Re-creating Giants 307

Envoi 315

Acknowledgments 317

Endnotes 319

Index 347

Editorial Reviews

★ 10/29/2018
Paleontologist Flannery (Atmosphere of Hope) pulls back the curtain on Europe’s past environments, while also giving a glimpse of its possible future, in this marvelous work. Flannery begins 100 million years ago, when dinosaurs still walked the Earth and Europe was a “tropical archipelago.” In this and each following section, Flannery introduces readers to the species that coexisted during a particular epoch, ranging from the very small to the very large and always including examples of the very strange, such as the “hell pigs” of the Oligocene period, between 33 million and 23 million years ago, or the Deinogalerix, the largest hedgehog to ever live, during the Miocene, between 23 million and five million years ago. Flannery also tracks the ebb and flow of less exotic species, such as relatives of bears, elephants, giraffes, and humans, and, throughout, shares a plethora of surprising facts, such as that “falcons and robins are more closely related to each other than are falcons and hawks.” In the final chapters, Flannery discusses the prospects for “rewilding” Europe—perhaps by importing once-native species, including lions and elephants. Beyond this book’s obvious appeal to conservation-minded Europeans, it should attract any reader interested in the past and future of the natural world. Agent: David Forrer and Kim Witherspoon, InkWell. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for Europe: A Natural History:

“Flannery pulls back the curtain on Europe’s past environments, while also giving a glimpse of its possible future, in this marvelous work…[he] shares a plethora of surprising facts…[Europe] should attract any reader interested in the past and future of the natural world.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A fascinating geological and natural history of Europe, from its origins as a tropical arc of islands to the present, as the world faces the challenges of rapidly rising temperatures. . . An illuminating natural history and warning for the future.” –Kirkus Reviews

“Bold and brilliant… Flannery looks far forwards as well as back, to see how pre-prehistory might inform tomorrow” –Irish Times

"Tim Flannery’s natural history takes us from the dinosaurs’ demise 66 million years ago to today…A rich, illuminating journey." –Nature

Praise for Tim Flannery:

“Tim Flannery is the real thing: a man with a gift for lucid exposition, who can really make his subject come alive.” –Literary Review

“Thoughtful, candid and—yes—ultimately upbeat, Atmosphere of Hope could not be more timely. It is just the book the world needs right now.” —Elizabeth Kolbert on Atmosphere of Hope

“An authoritative, scientifically accurate book on global warming that sparkles with life, clarity, and intelligence…The secret…seems to be confident knowledge joined to a storyteller’s gifts and a writer’s determination to get it just right–a rare combination, and a powerful one.” –The Washington Post on The Weather Makers

“Flannery…is without question an extraordinary scientist… A passionate explication of human influence on climate change and a call to action… Spellbinding… A tour de force.” –Bill Chameides, Science Magazine, on The Weather Makers

“Tim Flannery’s book will forever change your perspective on the North American continent…Flannery guides us on a sweeping odyssey through time, in which he synthesizes vast amounts of information from geology, paleontology, and human history… A penetrating, introspective account of the role we humans are playing on the evolutionary stage… Exhilarating.” –The New York Review of Books, on The Eternal Frontier

“[Flannery] has a particular talent for assembling and presenting the strands of his engaging narrative. He effectively weaves together descriptions of moving continents, shifting climates, and changing flora and fauna.” – Science, on The Eternal Frontier

From the Publisher

★ 12/01/2018

Chief councilor of the Australian Climate Council and paleontologist Flannery offers a definitive natural history of Europe from 100 million years ago to today's climate- and extinction-driven efforts to rewild. Transporting readers to meticulously described times and places, the author imparts micro and macro views of Europe that depict an Asian peninsula where human migration moved westward but that took its greatest innovations from its eastern neighbor. At the micro level are details such as those concerning the DNA of horses, which shows that the first herd had few stallions. Moving to a much wider view, Flannery describes, for example, the development of agriculture and animal husbandry in Europe. Throughout, the author employs crisp, lively language suitable for readers without a background in natural history; the level of research and detail, however, means that it can also be used as an uncommonly approachable natural history textbook. VERDICT An excellent choice for public and academic libraries. [See Prepub Alert, 8/13/18.]—Henrietta Verma, Credo Reference, Jackson Heights, NY

Library Journal

2018-10-23

A noted paleontologist traces Europe's land, flora, and fauna over 100 million years.

Australian explorer and conservationist Flannery (Atmosphere of Hope: Searching for Solutions to the Climate Crisis, 2015, etc.), chief councilor of the Australian Climate Council, offers a fascinating geological and natural history of Europe, from its origins as a tropical arc of islands to the present, as the world faces the challenges of rapidly rising temperatures. European biodiversity, writes the author, has been "destroyed and re-made three times over as celestial and tectonic forces shaped the land." He depicts in colorful detail the variety of wildlife inhabiting the islands along with dinosaurs, including primitive mammals, and strange creatures, such as pythonlike snakes, terrestrial crocodiles with serrated teeth, and "large side-necked turtles." Today, the midwife toad—a species in which the male gathers up and protects the eggs—represents Europe's oldest vertebrate family, a survivor of 100 million years of geological catastrophe, including the devastating asteroid crash that precipitated a nuclear winter and, some scientists argue, caused the extinction of dinosaurs. Besides revealing many examples of bizarre animal life—the blind salamander that spends its entire life in caves, for example, and the perissodactyl, an animal with a horselike head and gorillalike body and limbs with huge claws—Flannery traces the migration of fauna between Africa and Europe. About 12 million years ago, he asserts, "the faunas of Kenya and Germany became almost indistinguishable." Among the fauna were the earliest hominids, which appeared in Europe at least 1 million years earlier than in Africa, although genetic analysis confirms that the genus Homo did evolve in Africa, later migrating to Europe. Around 38,000 years ago, Europe became colonized by a "hybrid human-Neanderthal population." Today, Flannery concedes that a healthy population of carnivores, larger herbivores, and scavengers is making Europe "a wild and environmentally exciting place," but he cautions that efforts at "rewilding" need to be carried out with responsible scientific oversight and that indisputable global warming has real impact.

An illuminating natural history and warning for the future.

Kirkus Reviews