Includes bibliographical references (pages 247-267) and index.

Phi Beta Kappa Book Award in Science, 2003

Acknowledgments -- Preface to the new paperback edition -- Prologue -- Ch. 1. In the beginning? -- Ch. 2. The tree of life -- Ch. 3. Life's signature in ancient rocks -- Ch. 4. The earliest glimmers of life -- Ch. 5. The emergence of life -- Ch. 6. The oxygen revolution -- Ch. 7. The cyanobacteria, life's microbial heroes -- Ch. 8. The origins of eukaryotic cells -- Ch. 9. Fossils of early eukaryotes -- Ch. 10. Animals take the stage -- Ch. 11. Cambrian redux -- Ch. 12. Dynamic earth, permissive ecology -- Ch. 13. Paleontology ad astra -- Epilogue -- Further reading -- Index.

Australopithecines, dinosaurs, trilobites--such fossils conjure up images of lost worlds filled with vanished organisms. But in the full history of life, ancient animals, even the trilobites, form only the half-billion-year tip of a nearly four-billion-year iceberg. Andrew Knoll explores the deep history of life from its origins on a young planet to the incredible Cambrian explosion, presenting a compelling new explanation for the emergence of biological novelty. The very latest discoveries in paleontology are integrated with emerging insights from molecular biology and earth system science to forge a broad understanding of how the biological diversity that surrounds us came to be. In a new preface, Knoll describes how the field has broadened and deepened in the decade since the book's original publication.

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