The Earth: An Intimate History

The face of the world is quite different from what it was 1000 million years ago, yet the legacy of the remote past lives on in the land, vegetation, industries and mines. And it is of interest that the way we see the Earth through the eyes of science has altered so profoundly in the last 100 years. This is a book that conveys and explains the many textures of the world. Fortey describes why the Yellow River is yellow, why the beach on which Captain Cook landed is now forty metres above sea level, and why diamonds are concentrated in so few places.