The Universe Within
The Deep History of the Human Body
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4.1 • 45 Ratings
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
**Kirkus Best Books of the Year (2013)**
From one of our finest and most popular science writers, and the best-selling author of Your Inner Fish, comes the answer to a scientific mystery as big as the world itself: How are the events that formed our solar system billions of years ago embedded inside each of us?
In Your Inner Fish, Neil Shubin delved into the amazing connections between human bodies—our hands, heads, and jaws—and the structures in fish and worms that lived hundreds of millions of years ago. In The Universe Within, with his trademark clarity and exuberance, Shubin takes an even more expansive approach to the question of why we look the way we do. Starting once again with fossils, he turns his gaze skyward, showing us how the entirety of the universe’s fourteen-billion-year history can be seen in our bodies. As he moves from our very molecular composition (a result of stellar events at the origin of our solar system) through the workings of our eyes, Shubin makes clear how the evolution of the cosmos has profoundly marked our own bodies.
WITH BLACK-AND-WHITE LINE DRAWINGS THROUGHOUT
Customer Reviews
A synthesis of everything
Well, I'm biased. The opening chapter struck a chord; ten years earlier, in 1976, I'd accompanied Farish Jenkins, Chuck Schaff, and Bill Amaral on a collecting expedition in Montana. So I was hooked here from the get-go. Still, the title and topic seemed so far reaching that I purchased the book largely out of skepticism that anyone could address such a theme in a concise and coherent way. But as in his previous book, Your Inner Fish, Shubin maintains this interest with an enviable ability to connect disparate topics and events into a meaningful whole, just as he's done in connecting paleontology with cell and developmental biology in his professional life. He's able to balance technical detail with clear and entertaining prose. He strikes a good balance between personal anecdote and scientific exposition--and maintains that balance through the whole scope of the book. There is a tendency to oversimplify at times, and a few obvious proofreading mistakes--e.g., whales are derived from even-toed ungulates, not odd-toed--but these are minor issues; I very thoroughly enjoyed this and hope there's more to come.
The Universe Within
Excellent book, clear and well written.