The Story of Earth

The First 4.5 Billion Years, from Stardust to Living Planet

By: Robert M. Hazen

Narrated by: Walter Dixon

Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins

Publisher's summary

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)

Great book. Fascinating. Tough to read.

I enjoyed this book very much. However, it was very difficult to read there's a lot of information in a lot of descriptors that Overwhelm your mind. I found it easier to read it in short, sections of one chapter at a time or even one Subchapter at a time. I also followed up my reading or during my reading with the visual aids such as timelines or maps of the different time eras. overall this was a really good book I enjoyed it and will read it again.

A worthy read

A must read/listen! A book all humans need to read and ponder. But will we?

Very interesting and informative!

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes, it was well read, interesting and I learned a lot from this book.

What about Walter Dixon’s performance did you like?

His voice is very pleasing.

Any additional comments?

I will probably listen to this book over and over again!

Interesting and pleasant to listen to

Not only is this extremely interesting with a lot of information, but the narrator also has a very soothing and pleasant voice, so it’s just a joy to listen to.

Awesome Narration and content.

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes. Eye opener. The story is compelling.

What other book might you compare The Story of Earth to and why?

Water

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No

Any additional comments?

A must read if you live on this planet.

Denser science than I was in the mood for

I am ambivalent about this book. As it turns out, it was much more in depth science than I was in the mood for. Not that that's bad, it robustly covered every branch of physical science as it came into play- everything from astrophysics and geology to chemistry and microbiology... The author did include some "attention keepers" and amusing anecdotes peppered throughout, but if the subject matter isn't your cup of tea, it is not worth the read.

If you are not opposed to discussions that get down into the chemical makeup of obscure minerals and the theories on evolution of early microbes, then by all means give this a shot. Proportionally, my interests were in the first and final thirds on the genesis and most recent history of the planet. Even during those though, I still found myself zoning out and having to backtrack.

I nodded off not once, but twice during his chapter on the plate tectonics, something which, though being a little dry, I studied with interest in high school, and certainly it had never put me to sleep before. The mood picked up when he finally hit the Cambrian period and the trilobites (clearly a passion of his). Unfortunately he lost me entirely in the final chapter and epilogue when he digressed from the future of the planet into environmentalist preaching... say what you will about the climate change debate, that is not what I wanted to hear about here.

The narrator was adequate but not at all engaging. I gave it three stars across the board because I neither liked it nor disliked it. Maybe if I'm more in the mood for mineralogical history some day in the future, this will be worth revisiting.

Anyway, a solid nonfiction book, trove of wide ranging science on all things Earth, and worth it if you can keep focused on it.

Very in-depth and deep book

Author is clearly well versed in this space. Lots of details but it could have been better delivered. Hard to follow .

Great book. Tiresome 'breathless wonderment '

The narrator seemed as if he was showing a praying mantis to a group of six year olds. Then again, a story about rocks could easily drone on, and this narration did not.

I was pulled to the core you might say.

It's hard to believe that a step on to any natural surface of any area I ever go again ...it will not be the same with the knowledge I have recieved from this book, of what is under my feet.

Makes minerals interesting

It takes a mineral expert to understand the development of earth. I'm not a mineral expert and I don't play one on TV, but after listening to this book I feel like I'm a geologist in training.

I didn't think it was possible. The author makes minerals and its science interesting. He has an over arching theory that's best summarized as "the origin of (mineral) species".

For those of you who have a pet theory and have a deep understanding of the subject you'll probably find many things to criticize about this book and you'd probably be right. Either your theory is not covered at all or he doesn't cover it in the way you believe. Give the author a break, he's covering over 4 1/2 billion years of history.

I'll be awaiting further shows on Discovery covering this same topic, and maybe this time I'll be able to follow them.

I bought this book on the Kindle when it first came out, because I didn't think there was going to be an audio version. I had read 2/3 of the book on the Kindle and listened to the last 1/3 of the book on audible. The reader really made the book better. He has a way of making what he's reading as exciting as the subject matter deserves. I probably would not have finished the kindle, I much prefer to listen. Good book and even better listen.