Written by award-winning author Donald R. Prothero, The Evolving Earth provides a lively, engaging tour through 4.5 billion years of earth and life evolution. Completely up-to-date, the book focuses on the evidence for "How do we know what we know?"--explaining how geologists and paleontologists developed our knowledge about the ancient past--rather than focusing on memorization.

While covering the conventional topics of earth history, The Evolving Earth also offers an in-depth discussion of the Big Bang theory and the origin of the universe and solar system; an entire chapter on human evolution; and coverage of topics like climate change, the Anthropocene, and possible future scenarios for the earth. Prothero explains topics in terms of the "human interest" stories of the people who made these discoveries, and how they came to understand key evidence about earth and life history. Featuring unique paleogeographic maps of particular time intervals, integrated with photographs of the actual outcrops on which the map reconstruction is based, the book also includes a full appendix--suitable for use in labs on fossils--providing background to the major groups of fossils.