How did the world as we know it—from the soil beneath our feet to the air we breathe and the life that surrounds us—come to be?

Geologists have proposed one set of answers while biologists have proposed another.

Earth and Life is the first book to reveal why we need to listen to both voices—the physical and the biological—to understand how we and our planet became possible.

In this captivating book, Andrew Knoll traces how all life is sustained by Earth’s geological and atmospheric dynamics, and how life itself shapes the physical environment.