What On Earth Happened The Complete Story Of The Planet Life And People From The Big Bang To The Present Day Deals on Christopher Lloyd

What on Earth Happened?: The Complete Story of the Planet, Life, ...

Category: (Book)

20 new, starting at $28.15

9 used, starting at $13.49

Editorial Reviews

A gorgeously illustrated and wholly comprehensive timeline of the earth's entire history that explains how everything is interconnected.

As comprehensive as the subtitle suggests, What on Earth Happened is a primer for Planet Earth, a giant narrative leap across time and space, one seismic change at a time. Combining the history of earth science and the history of human civilization, What on Earth Happened covers how the earth was formed, how life began, the way the ecosystem works, how species evolved, the rise of man, migration, the development of tools, language, agriculture, art, transportation, architecture, cities, religion, government, global conflicts, and medicine. In short, it shows how everything—from the mountains and flowers and the birds and the bees to the Iraq war and the oil under the Arctic—is all wonderfully, complexly interconnected.

Entertaining and accessible—and gorgeously illustrated with specially commissioned graphs, charts and maps—What on Earth Happened connects the dots of the past to tell a coherent, comprehensive, and compelling story about our very own third rock from the sun.

Customer Reviews

Gorgeous and informative

Reviewed by L. K. Messner, 2009-11-18

This is a book that took me a long time to get through, not because I didn't enjoy it but because there's just so, so much here. It's beautifully illustrated and one of those family reference resources that we've pulled down from the shelf many times in the past six months when one of the kids had a homework question or was just wondering about the nature of our planet. Easy to read and a great resource.

An agenda written between the lines

Reviewed by English Teacher, 2009-10-03

I thought this would be an enjoyable read, given that the book purports to explain "everything," but as I read through it the author's agenda became quite clear. Of course every subject cannot be treated comprehensively, but it was appalling to see the bias with which some subjects were treated. In some areas, the author did indeed delve deeply into the subject but he gave short shrift to others. A whole chapter on what he seems to feel is the glorious rise of Islam, but when he gets to the Holocaust he gives it less than half a sentence. Furthermore, he refers to the Holocaust as "what is now called the holocaust," lower-case "h," and that is the ENTIRE extent of this topic. Chapters and chapters on China and every other part of history, but half a sentence to the greatest outrage in history!
Throughout the book the author exhibits a very strong left-wing bias, in areas too numerous to mention. I am certainly glad that I got this from the library rather than purchasing it, and I am getting rid of it immediately.

nice overview, but could have been better

Reviewed by Nim Sudo, 2009-03-19

I have been postponing writing this review because I have been meaning to read the whole book first, but I lost interest and can't get it back. So here is my review, based on the first third of the book, together with random samplings of the rest.

The conceit of this book is to connect human history with the history of the physical world, and to start the latter all the way back at the beginning of the known universe in the big bang. Human history is certainly essentially connected with the environment, as beautifully expounded in the books by Jared Diamond (which seem to have been a heavy influence on the present book). It is nice to have an overview of all of history (as opposed to the particular aspects studied by Jared Diamond) which emphasizes this important aspect. However I think it is overkill to go all the way back to the big bang. It would be enough to start a million or two years ago.

In any case, the first quarter of the book, from the big bang to the emergence of humans, is kind of shaky. This part of the book is more science than history and could be a lot better if some expert editors would clean it up. There are poor explanations (for example the explanation of how trees transport water from their roots to their leaves doesn't explain anything), vapid prose, outright errors displaying complete ignorance of the relevant areas of science (for example the book says that it is not known whether the rate of expansion of the universe is increasing, but in fact a major discovery in astronomy in 1998, which has since been independently confirmed in a number of different ways, is that the universe is expanding at an exponential rate), and excessive striving to make connections where there are none (for example it talks about how insects developed the "first societies" or something like that, but this has no relevance whatsoever to the development of human societies).

The later parts of the book, which discuss human history, seem to be on firmer ground (but maybe it just seems this way to me because I don't know so much about these topics). Obviously a 400 page book on all of history is going to have to skip over a lot of details. Still, I think one could have explained a lot more in the space available.

The author has a cynical view of human history in terms of exploitation and destruction of natural resources. I think this is actually an essential aspect to keep in mind, although the author maybe goes a bit too far with this. He presents a romantic view of stone age life as a kind of paradise, which is not exactly credible.

The original illustrations touted in the product description are nice, but nothing spectacular.

In summary: this is a nice overview, and would probably be good for children (and I plan to browse some of the human history chapters in the future). However for describing the relation between human history and the environment, Jared Diamond is much better.

The History of Everything That Ever Happened, In 400 Pages

Reviewed by Sacramento Book Review, 2009-01-14

A history book that claims to be the complete story of Earth, life, and mankind from the Big Bang to now sets for itself a mark that would be hard to do in an encyclopedia, much less a single 400 page volume. Lloyd pulls it off, albeit mostly as a surface study of all that's happened, but that's not a bad thing. Broken into four sections, /What on Earth Happened?/ doesn't spend a huge number of pages on the early years (13.7 billion years ago to 7 million BC), but does a more than adequate job explaining the creation of the universe, the earth, and how early life began and changed. The other three sections are focused around human development, civilization, and events, right on up to a final chapter discussing the challenges facing humankind today. It is well written, entertaining, and well organized. One of the small touches, is a 24-hour countdown clock on the edges of the pages, giving a perspective of the time frame involved over almost 14 billion years. The many illustrations and maps are a good addition, and are helpful to the reader. Lloyd's multiple Top Ten lists in the back are fun (Top Ten Natural Events That Shaped the World) and his bibliography and notes provide further reading for anyone looking for more in depth information.

A lively history of everything.

Reviewed by Robert Holland, 2009-01-12

This is a great book for kids and for the general adult reader who wants to understand the broad outlines of science and history. Based on a 24-hour timeline metaphor, chronologically color-coded, and applying the sweep of a broad brush, the book does an admirable job of synthesizing the state of knowledge as we know it now. It's not what one would call academically rigorous, but then that's not the point.

If you're looking for a lively intelligence to provide you a bird's eye view of the universe, or a way to be the fount of all wisdom for your grandchildren, this book is worth a look. From the big bang to the art of cloning, you can enjoy the USA Today version of the history of everything. It's probably more than you know now, right?