A good fit for middle and high school libraries as a useful reference.
An encyclopedic history of the emergence of life on Earth that “traces the history of life from the dawn of evolution to the present day through the lens of one hundred living things that have changed the world.”
Lloyd (What on Earth Happened?: The Complete Story of the Planet, Life, and People from the Big Bang to the Present Day, 2008, etc.) orders species chronologically and also ranks them according to the impact that these “living things have had on the path of evolution.” The book—originally titled What on Earth Evolved? and first published in 2009 in the U.K. to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin's Origin of the Species—is divided into two major sections. The first, “Before Humans,” from 4 billion to 12,000 years ago, deals with the “the impact of species that evolved in the wild”—e.g., viruses, algae, trees, fish, insects, and, eventually, Homo sapiens. The second section, “After Humans,” spans the period from “12,000 years ago to the present day” and discusses “the impact of species that thrived in the presence of modern mankind.” The author gives special emphasis to the role of viruses, which, through infection, caused mutations that induced “critical innovations” in a variety of species. He also spotlights predators such as sharks, for mastering “the art of sexual reproduction” 400 million years ago. The biggest evolutionary news occurred when “modern humans first emerged in Africa, about 160,000 years ago.” Lloyd also offers a fascinating historical sidelight on how the “potyvirus,” by causing the spectacular mutation of tulips, created the conditions for the first speculative boom and bust. He gives the lowly earthworm top ranking due to its crucial role in creating fertile soil, while Homo sapiens occupy the sixth position. “Traditional history,” writes the author, “seldom considers the impact of a range of living species that have, in their own way, had a far greater impact on the planet, life and people than human contributions, such as politics, war and inventions.”
A good fit for middle and high school libraries as a useful reference.Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4088-7638-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.
Rootin’-tootin’ history of the dry-gulchers, horn-swogglers, and outright killers who populated the Wild West’s wildest city in the late 19th century.
The stories of Wyatt Earp and company, the shootout at the O.K. Corral, and Geronimo and the Apache Wars are all well known. Clavin, who has written books on Dodge City and Wild Bill Hickok, delivers a solid narrative that usefully links significant events—making allies of white enemies, for instance, in facing down the Apache threat, rustling from Mexico, and other ethnically charged circumstances. The author is a touch revisionist, in the modern fashion, in noting that the Earps and Clantons weren’t as bloodthirsty as popular culture has made them out to be. For example, Wyatt and Bat Masterson “took the ‘peace’ in peace officer literally and knew that the way to tame the notorious town was not to outkill the bad guys but to intimidate them, sometimes with the help of a gun barrel to the skull.” Indeed, while some of the Clantons and some of the Earps died violently, most—Wyatt, Bat, Doc Holliday—died of cancer and other ailments, if only a few of old age. Clavin complicates the story by reminding readers that the Earps weren’t really the law in Tombstone and sometimes fell on the other side of the line and that the ordinary citizens of Tombstone and other famed Western venues valued order and peace and weren’t particularly keen on gunfighters and their mischief. Still, updating the old notion that the Earp myth is the American Iliad, the author is at his best when he delineates those fraught spasms of violence. “It is never a good sign for law-abiding citizens,” he writes at one high point, “to see Johnny Ringo rush into town, both him and his horse all in a lather.” Indeed not, even if Ringo wound up killing himself and law-abiding Tombstone faded into obscurity when the silver played out.
Buffs of the Old West will enjoy Clavin’s careful research and vivid writing.Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21458-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
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