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The Tangled Tree
Book

The Tangled Tree

A Radical New History of Life

David Quammen
Simon & Schuster, 2018

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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Scientific
  • Eye Opening
  • Concrete Examples

Recommendation

In light of public fascination with family genealogy and heredity, David Quammen’s book offers provocative reading. While it won’t help you determine if you’re related to royalty, it will introduce you to other members of your gene pool: bacteria and viruses. In this ambitious undertaking, Quammen presents the sweep of research into evolutionary history, neatly breaking that history into mostly readable sections about science and scientists. One facet of this highly recommended book is more implied than stated: how science is conducted, and the culture and values of that institution.

Take-Aways

  • Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection challenged the belief that God shaped each species in special acts of creation.
  • Naturalists use the tree of life to organize and classify life by shape and behavior.
  • Scientists had subdivided living organisms into two domains: single-celled prokaryotes – or bacteria – and eukaryotes, more complex organisms.

About the Author

David Quammen has written 15 books, including The Song of the Dodo and The Reluctant Mr. Darwin. A former Rhodes scholar, he wrote the text of the entire May 2016 National Geographic about Yellowstone’s ecosystem. Harper’s, The Atlantic, Outside and other magazines also have published his work.

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