The Story of Earth

The First 4.5 Billion Years, from Stardust to Living Planet

By: Robert M. Hazen

Narrated by: Walter Dixon

Earth evolves. From first atom to molecule, mineral to magma, granite crust to single cell to verdant living landscape, ours is a planet constantly in flux. In this radical new approach to Earth’s biography, senior Carnegie Institution researcher and national best-selling author Robert M. Hazen reveals how the co-evolution of the geosphere and biosphere - of rocks and living matter - has shaped our planet into the only one of its kind in the Solar System, if not the entire cosmos.

With an astrobiologist’s imagination, a historian’s perspective, and a naturalist’s passion for the ground beneath our feet, Hazen explains how changes on an atomic level translate into dramatic shifts in Earth’s makeup over its 4.567 billion year existence. He calls upon a flurry of recent discoveries to portray our planet’s many iterations in vivid detail - from its fast-rotating infancy when the Sun rose every 5 hours and the Moon filled 250 times more sky than it does now, to its sea-bathed youth, before the first continents arose; from the Great Oxidation Event that turned the land red, to the globe-altering volcanism that may have been the true killer of the dinosaurs. Through Hazen’s theory of “co-evolution,” we learn how reactions between organic molecules and rock crystals may have generated Earth’s first organisms, which in turn are responsible for more than two-thirds of the mineral varieties on the planet - thousands of different kinds of crystals that could not exist in a nonliving world.

The Story of Earth is also the story of the pioneering men and women behind the sciences. Listeners will meet black-market meteorite hawkers of the Sahara Desert, the gun-toting Feds who guarded the Apollo missions’ lunar dust, and the World War II Navy officer whose super-pressurized “bomb” - recycled from military hardware - first simulated the molten rock of Earth’s mantle. As a mentor to a new generation of scientists, Hazen introduces the intrepid young explorers whose dispatches from Earth’s harshest landscapes will revolutionize geology.

Celebrated by The New York Times for writing “with wonderful clarity about science . . . that effortlessly teaches as it zips along,” Hazen proves a brilliant and entertaining guide on this grand tour of our planet inside and out. Lucid, controversial, and intellectually bracing, The Story of Earth is popular science of the highest order.

©2012 Robert M. Hazen (P)2012 Gildan Media, LLC

Critic reviews

“A fascinating new theory on the Earth’s origins written in a sparkling style with many personal touches. . . . Hazen offers startling evidence that ‘Earth’s living and nonliving spheres’ have co-evolved over the past four billion years.” ( Kirkus Reviews)

Narrator spoils the book

Would you be willing to try another one of Walter Dixon’s performances?

No. I'm a geologist and Walter Dixon spoils the book for me with his many mispronunciations of geological terms. One would think he would have researched these words in advance. Examples of botched words include: rhythmites (as in tidal rhythmites), peridotite, and plagioclase. There are many more.

Phenomenal book

I learned so much from this enjoyable work, even though I have worked as an earth science teacher in middle school and at the undergraduate level. We tend to think that the planet needs to be saved and we’re the only ones who can do that. Hazen reminds us that the earth 🌏 will be just fine. Current problems are for us and the plants and animals we share this world with. The time for dealing with that is rapidly vanishing. Earth and life will survive. However we have little idea what its future looks like.

Tremendous Presentation

I really enjoyed this work. The author does an excellent job of giving an overview of our planet’s history. I particularly like how he continuously reminds the reader of the point in time of which he writes. I found it easy to follow. Highly recommend.

Twist on an old story.

A look at the changing Earth from the minerals up. I really enjoyed the book and narration. Haden does a very nice job at tying the chemistry of the inorganic and organic together.

I love science non-fiction whether physics, biology or cosmology- and now geology finally. If you like geology or collecting rocks, this adds to the story of each rock. If you like learning about how the Earth and life began, this brings more detail into focus on the role minerals played and the effect of life on the minerals we see today.

Easy to listen to and follow. I will definitely listen again to absorb even more. Walter Dixon narrated beautifully. I would look for more titles that he has read as well.

Earth's history.

Loved it. although I am a huge history buff. I can listen to the narrator while I work, drive, mow the lawn, What ever.