Niles Eldredge, a curator in the Department of Invertebrates at the American Museum of Natural History, may be best known as the coauthor of the concept of "punctuated equilibria". Here Eldredge explores how the physical forces shaping our world relate to the process of biological evolution in the context of the history of ideas on evolution. Praised by Ian Tattersall for "weaving together an extraordinary diversity of information into a single coherent theory of the evolution of the biosphere" and as "smoothly flowing and highly readable".

During one important period of life´s history, vertebrate creatures left the water to colonize land, and later, some vertebrates readapted to that environment. Zimmer traces the discovery of both the transition to land of early tetrapods, and the later transition to water of the whales. If you are ever having an argument over "transitional fossils", this is the book you want to have!

Tufts University philosopher Dennett thoroughly describes evolutionary science, including its current controversies, and then goes on to spell out its implications for modern philosophy and modern life. Dennett argues that natural selection "is a universal solvent, capable of cutting right to the heart of everything in sight".