Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History
High in the Canadian Rockies is a small limestone quarry formed 530 million years ago called the Burgess Shale. It hold the remains of an ancient sea where dozens of strange creatures lived—a forgotten corner of evolution preserved in awesome detail. In this book Stephen Jay Gould explores what the Burgess Shale tells us about evolution and the nature of history.\ \ "Luminous. . .Filled with profound and upsetting ideas like the Burgess Shale itself and just as solid....
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"[An] extraordinary book. . . . Mr. Gould is an exceptional combination of scientist and science writer. . . . He is thus exceptionally well placed to tell these stories, and he tells them with fervor and intelligence."—James Gleick, New York Times Book Review James Gleick Mr. Gould is an exceptional combination of scientist and science writer, one of America's foremost paleontologists and the author of many books on evolution and on scientific history. He is thus exceptionally well placed to tell these stories, and he tells them with fervor and intelligence. He attempts a rare thing in science writing: a book meant to hold the interest of both specialists and lay readers....Mr. Gould revels in both the big and the small, and he weaves his stories together well. -- New York Times
\ James GleickMr. Gould is an exceptional combination of scientist and science writer, one of America's foremost paleontologists and the author of many books on evolution and on scientific history. He is thus exceptionally well placed to tell these stories, and he tells them with fervor and intelligence. He attempts a rare thing in science writing: a book meant to hold the interest of both specialists and lay readers....Mr. Gould revels in both the big and the small, and he weaves his stories together well. -- New York Times\ \ \ \ \ Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly\ The Burgess Shale, a small quarry in the mountains of British Columbia, opened a window on the first multicellular animals. Gould, eminent life-historian and author, introduces us to the creatures of Burgess Shale and to those who have painstakingly examined them. ``This is exciting and illuminating material on the beginnings of life,'' wrote PW. Illustrated. (Sept.)\ \ \ Library JournalThe Burgess Shale, found in the Canadian Rockies, contains an extremely important fossil fauna that includes an assortment of weird and wonderful creatures. Gould, the best-known modern exponent of paleontology and evolutionary biology, interprets, with the wit and grace his many fans expect, the significance of this 530-million-year-old fauna. His arguments entail learning some anatomy of unfamiliar creatures, but Gould gently guides the way. The book does ramble some, but the asides are so fascinating! This book is much more theoretical than Harry B. Whittington's briefer and more matter-of-fact work, The Burgess Shale (Yale Univ. Pr., 1985), another good book on the topic. This is an intellectual delight, one of Gould's best recent books. It is highly recommended for the interested layperson, as well as for students from the college level on up. BOMC, History Book Club, and Quality Paperback selections. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 5/1/89.-- Joseph Hannibal, Cleveland Museum of Natural History\ \
