Prehistoric Life: The Definitive Visual History of Life on Earth

Great book on history of earth and evolution of living things. So many colorful images and diagrams makes the presentation wonderful. It's easy to read and has so much of information.My 9 year old nephew is thrilled and borrows it all the time. the book is quite heavy though.The price is so cheap. Me being a biologist I will love to keep on buying palaeontology books. This one sure is a gem.

One of the finest books on evolution I ever read. Well hardbound with fanatastic photographs and diagrams. Packed with knowledge which a lay pesron can understand. A proud collection to my library.Thanks Amazon for sending this book in shortest possible time.

I would say, this one is best in popular prehistoric life books. The experience was enhanced by pretty fast delivery from amazon.

Wonderful book I ever read about prehistoric. Worth for your money.pictures and explanations are amazing. I'm very Happy to add this book in my library.

It's a weak 4-star rating from me bcoz: - Beautifully designed - Impressive detail - Can be used on the coffee table - Gets a bit boring looking at only bones/fossils - Nice that creatures other than dinosaurs have been covered

Great book huge size filled with beautiful eye catching pictures.. you will find tons of knowledge about prehistoric world....a must buy

The best book I have ever read on this topic. A very in-detail explanation with outstanding images.

GREAT

Only fraction of price in Germany. Superb photographies of fossils. Enormous enrichment of private paleology studies.

English only book. Not available in French This book is stunning. Simpy stunning. Far surpassed my expectations. It's superbly organised and the layout and photos are really superb. The amount of infomation is complete and detailed. I honestly think it could be the most beautiful book ever made, providing you are interested in dinosaurs, space, the planet, rocks etc. Take the hardback, this is a book you'll want to keep. Dorling Kindersley are always good but they have really surpassed themselves this time. Pity the delivery guy threw it over the wall and damaged the corner- Amazon were good about it though.

Aunque no estoy demasiado acostumbrado a leer en inglés, me parece bastante ameno. Además, es muy completo: abarca fósiles de toda la historia de la Tierra, centrándose en el Fanerozoico (obviamente) pero sin perder de vista el Precámbrico. La introducción (con la formación de la Tierra, la Tectónica de Placas, los distintos procesos de fosilización...), los apartados de los fósiles y los mapas de la Tierra (muy visuales) y el capítulo de la Evolución Humana, hacen de ésta una imprescindible guía de fósiles.

Prehistoric Life: The Definitive Visual History of Life on Earth This is a sumptuous and learned book. But it is also unreadable. It serves as a visually beautiful reference book, and a thick-volume to be thumbed through, read in parts, consulted, and used as a stimulus to the sense of wonder. “Prehistoric Life” consists of about 500 richly illustrated colored pages that include many explanatory units of boxed-in text. The book starts with the origin of the Earth, and has separate sections for each of the geological time periods, starting with the Archean, four billion years ago, and ending with the history of our species, Homo sapiens. Every page you open to is colorful and filled with images of fossils, plants, animals or artistic reproductions of life forms, and every page has scientific text amplifying each separate picture. The scope of this book and the level of knowledge that it contains is astounding and leaves the reader struck with both the artistry of book-making and the rigor of science that is involved with the creation of this text. There is no single author, and as is usual with DK Books, there are many authors, scientific consultants, editors, designers, illustrators, and photographers who had to cooperate to make this rich compendium. Unfortunately, as again is usually true with DK Books, the reader does not know which author or authority wrote the particular prose passage that one is reading. The acknowledgments alone take up three pages of four columns each. Partly because of the encyclopedic information that is discussed, and partly because of the use of text to accompany illustrations, rather than the creation of a continuous single author narrative, this book can be read only in a halting, jumping, discontinuous manner. “Prehistoric Life” contains many excellent features beyond its lush beauty and its factual depth. Every section of geologic history begins with its own map of the globe at that point in time, with a clear time chart, and with a discussion of how the continents and oceans were behaving in continental drift, and what the climate was like. Therefore the reader is not simply guided to pictures of plants and animals, but is constantly reminded of the interactions between geology, climatology, and the evolution of plants and animals. The overall impact of this book is thrilling. It puts the individual reader’s life into the perspective of our planet’s life. It makes us grateful for the accumulation of scientific knowledge, the vast majority of which is less than 200 years old. Both the topic and the minds that clarified it are radiant additions to one’s sense of who one is and how human life has come to be. The information content seems up to date and impeccable. In a book that covers almost everything, 500 glossy pages is not too long, so obviously there is an arbitrary selection of what is included and what is short changed. For example, the stunningly beautiful forty pages on human evolution show the photographs of the exact skulls that have been used to define the earlier species of humankind. Many books discuss the issue of human evolution but few illustrate it with such high color photography. On the other hand, you may find that your favorite dinosaur, or your favorite Pleistocene megafauna has not been included even though there was space enough for the editors to give many pages to something as obscure as carboniferous invertebrates. Pouring over this book has been a delightful, sobering, incomprehensible, and exhilarating experience for me. It is the perfect complement to a book on the sense of wonder. Reviewed by Paul R. Fleischman author of "Wonder: When and Why the World Appears Radiant

Members of our Thompson-Nicola Paleontological Society (TNPS) in Kamloops, B.C. ,Canada have examined PREHISTORIC LIFE and most of of them wish to own one. It is a great comprehensive visual look at history of life on earth with great scientific text to explain the many beautiful illustrations,charts and geological ages. It is a superb reference book for paleontologists. Kenneth Dickinson Member of the TNPS