How to Build a Habitable Planet: The Story of Earth from the Big Bang to Humankind (Revised and Expanded Edition) - Hardcover

Langmuir, Charles H.; Broecker, Wally

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0691140065 ISBN 13: 9780691140063

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2012

Synopsis

Interweaving physics, astronomy, chemistry, geology, and biology, this book tells Earth's complete story, from the synthesis of chemical elements in stars, to the formation of the Solar System, to the evolution of a habitable climate on Earth, to the origin of life and humankind.

About this title

Review:

"In this comprehensive and engaging tour of environmental science, world-leading authorities Charles Langmuir and Wally Broecker provide the residents of the only habitable planet we know with the essential knowledge of how we got here and where we might be going."--Richard Alley, Pennsylvania State University

"As NASA continues to assess the habitability of our planetary neighbor, Mars, this insightful and approachable book is a timely reminder of how important it is to understand the habitability of our own Earth. Comprehensive and up-to-date, it exposes how ideas, imperfect understanding, and controversies drive scientific knowledge forward."--Roger Everett Summons, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

"This is a magnificent book, a successful and very worthwhile revision of its legendary and coveted first edition. The new edition offers more than a minor dusting off of the material. There are some completely new chapters and the authors have also done a good job of introducing newer discoveries. This book is more timely than ever, and I greet this revision with uncontained enthusiasm."--Raymond T. Pierrehumbert, University of Chicago

"This book is exceptionally well written and easy to read. The authors have taken a huge and complex topic and simplified it, removed the jargon, used analogies common to everyday experience, and as a result made a book that should be accessible and enjoyable to readers with little background in science."--Becky Alexander, University of Washington

"Honorable Mention for the 2012 Award for Best Professional/Scholarly Book in Earth Sciences, Association of American Publishers"

"[T]his classic history of our common home with the latest discoveries in planetary science . . . is a cutting-edge exploration of the Earth's evolution from the Big Bang to the advent of human civilization."--Barnes & Noble Review

"To be worth being this unwieldy, a book ought to do something pretty remarkable. And that's just what How to Build . . . does, as you can tell from its subtitle, The Story of Earth from the Big Bang to Humankind. Now that's what you call a large canvas."---Brian Clegg, Popular Science

"Like any good story, the tale that Langmuir and Broecker tell is a complex, weaving narrative that would be ideally placed on your bookcase between James Kasting's How to Find a Habitable Planet and Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee's Rare Earth. . . . As non-astronomers they cover the initial cosmological and astronomical sections adequately, but as the book develops towards explaining the processes that make Earth habitable, the authors' expertise really comes to the fore. . . . How to Build a Habitable Planet is Earth's story, but Langmuir and Broecker conclude with a nod to exoplanets and the search for alien life. Could it one day also become another planet's story?"--Astronomy Now

"The authors . . . have taken on a mighty task. You cannot underestimate the accuracy of their scholarship, or its thoroughness."---Heather Couper, BBC Sky at Night

"This is a completely different book, wholly updated but also more detailed and more comprehensive. Yet, it keeps the bright flavour of the old version, and remains accessible without compromising on accuracy. . . . How to Build a Habitable Planet is an accurate and enjoyable read."---Euan G. Nisbet, Nature Geoscience

About the Author:

Charles H. Langmuir is the Higgins Professor of Geochemistry at Harvard University. Wally Broecker is the Newberry Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University and the author of Fixing Climate and The Great Ocean Conveyor (Princeton), among other books. Both are members of the National Academy of Sciences.

About this edition

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0691140065
• ISBN 13: 9780691140063
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 736