Otherlands

Otherlands

by Thomas Halliday

In this tour-de-force exploration of the Earth as it used to exist, the brilliant, award-winning paleobiologist Thomas Halliday takes us from the savannahs of Pliocene Kenya, to the salty canyons of the Miocene Mediterranean, to the tropical forests of Eocene Antarctica. While offering us a vast perspective on the current state of the planet, Halliday brings us up close to the intricate relationships that defined these lost worlds. In novelistic prose, he illustrates how ecosystems are formed and how species adapt, collaborate, die out, and are replaced. Otherlands is a breathtaking achievement: a surprisingly emotional narrative about the persistence of life, the fragility of seemingly permanent ecosystems, and the scope of deep time, all of which have something to tell us about our current crisis.

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