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THE AGES OF GAIA: A BIOGRAPHY OF OUR LIVING EARTH |
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Further Reading CHAPTER 1 For an alternative view of the work at JPL, what would be better to read than The Search for Life on Mars, by Henry Cooper (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1976)? CHAPTER 2 A beautiful and entirely comprehensible book about entropy is P. W. Atkins's The Second Law (New York and London: Freeman, 1986). The classic account of the problem of defining life is What Is Life?, by Erwin Schrodinger, written in Dublin during the Second World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1944). The lightest of Ilya Prigogine's books on the difficult subject of the thermodynamics of the unsteady state is From Being to Becoming (San Francisco: Freeman, 1980). For a straightforward account of the evolution of the Earth from a geologist's viewpoint, there is no better book than The Chemical Evolution of the Atmosphere and Oceans, by H. D. Holland (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984). A similar book on climatology is The Coevolution of Climate and Life, by Stephen Schneider and Randi Londer (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1984). CHAPTER 3 Those interested in geophysiological theory should read Alfred Lotka's classic book, Elements of Physical Biology (Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1925). Autopoiesis, the organization of living things, and many other concepts helpful for understanding life as a process, are described in The Tree of Knowledge, by Humberto R. Maturana and Francisco J. Varela (Boston: New Science Library, 1987). CHAPTER 4 For those interested in the synthesis of elements within stars and about the life of stars in general, there is a splendid account of these awesome events in Sir Fred Hoyle's Astronomy and Cosmology (San Francisco: Freeman, 1975). In Early Life, Lynn Margulis provides a beautiful and clearly written account of the known and the conjectured of the obscure period before and after life began, including a picture of the evolution of nascent life (Boston: Science Books International, 1982). If you are interested in the beginnings, then read Origins of Life, by Freeman Dyson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986) and Origins: A Skeptic's Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth, by Robert Shapiro (New York: Summit, 1986). A rare geological text that restores soul to the misty Archean world is E. G. Nisbet's book, The Young Earth (London: Allen and Unwin, 1986). The work of some of the pioneers of the new field of biomineralization is recorded in Biomineralization and Biological Medical Accumulation. by P. Westbroek and E. W. de Jong (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1982). For those interested in the evolution of eukaryotic cells, there is a detailed account in Lynn Margulis's book Symbiosis in Cell Evolution (San Francisco: Freeman, 1981). A splendid account of the four eons of evolution from our microbial ancestors is in Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan's book Microcosmos (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986). CHAPTER 6 A fair amount of Gaia theory has come from evidence about the atmosphere and atmospheric chemistry. A book that summarizes the evidence of this subject in a readable way is Chemistry of Atmospheres, by Richard P. Wayne (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985). For a professional account drawn from conventional wisdom, The Planets and 'Their Atmospheres by John S. Lewis and Ronald G. Prinn is to be recommended as an antidote to Gaia (Orlando, Fla.: Academic Press, 1984). CHAPTER 7 The proceedings of the meeting in Brazil mentioned in the chapter are now published as a book, The Geophysiology of Amazonia, edited by Robert E. Dickinson (New York: Wiley, 1987). An account of the battlefield scenes of the chlorofluorocarbon conflict is to be found in The Ozone War, by Lydia Dotto and Harold Schiff (New York: Doubleday, 1978). Rachel Carson stands, like Marx, as the major influence behind a revolution, this time in environmental thought and action. Her seminal book, Silent Spring (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962), must be included in any further reading of the topics related to this chapter. Environmental affairs are in the realm of politics, and for a wise and understanding view from that perspective you should read Climatic Change and World Affairs, by Sir Crispin Tickell (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1986). An outstanding figure among environmental scientists is Paul R. Erlich, his book with Anne H. Erlich, Population Resources Environment, is essential reading to capture the heart and mind of the ecology movement (New York: Freeman, 1972). A contemporary view of environmental problems is provided in Sustainable Development of the Biosphere, edited by William C. Clark and R. E. Munn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986). CHAPTER 8 If you really want to know what the surface of Mars looks like, then there is no better source than the descriptive writing and photographs in Michael Carr's beautiful book, The Surface of Mars (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1981). CHAPTER 9 A theologian's view of Gaia is expressed in Hugh Montefiore's The Probability of God (London: SCM Press, 1985). An unusual and very readable book is God and Human Suffering, by Douglas John Hall. Although it is not directly concerned with Gaia, I found it to be helpful and moving while revising this chapter (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1986). For me the most important book to connect with this chapter is Angels Fear: Towards an Epistemology of the Sacred, by Gregory Bateson and Mary Catherine Bateson (New York: Macmillan, 1987). For an understanding of scientists' views of the Universe, perhaps the best summary is in The Self-Organizing Universe, by Erich Jantsch (Oxford: Pergammon, 1980). A subject often linked with Gaia, but which is in fact very different, is The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, by John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986). GENERAL For those who find the topic of Gaia entertaining, probably no one has written with more feeling than Lewis Thomas in his many books, in particular The Lives of a Cell (New York: Viking Press, 1975), and 'The Youngest Science (New York: Viking Press, 1983). No guide to the world would be complete without an atlas, and the most appropriate would be Gaia: An Atlas of Planet Management, edited by Norman Myers (New York: Doubleday, 1984). The evolution of the Earth from a geologist's viewpoint is clearly expressed and beautifully illustrated by Frank Press and Raymond Siever in Earth (San Francisco: Freeman, 1982). For a physicist's view of the evolution of the cosmos and life, see Eric Chaisson's book, The Life Era (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1987). And for a mainstream ecologist's view of the Earth written at the same time but in great contrast to the views expressed in the first Gaia book, I strongly recommend Paul Colinvaux's book, Why Big Fierce Animals Are Rare (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1978). The world of the scientists who have participated in the discoveries recorded in this book is captured in Planet Earth, by Jonathan Weiner (New York: Bantam Books, 1986).
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