A richly illustrated journey through the evolution of Africa’s extraordinary natural world across deep timeOrigin Africa is a unique introduction to the natural history and evolution of the most misrepresented continent on Earth. Celebrated evolutionary biologist and artist Jonathan Kingdon, a leading expert on the natural history of Africa, tells this extraordinary story as no one else can. Featuring a wealth of photographs and illustrations, the book is ...

Once in a great while, as the New York Times noted recently, a naturalist writes a book that changes the way people look at the living world. John James Audubon’s Birds of America, published in 1838, was one. Roger Tory Peterson’s 1934 Field Guide to the Birds was another. How does such insight into nature develop?Pioneering a new niche in the study of plants and animals in their native habitat, Field Notes on Science and Nature allows readers to...

Our ability to walk on two legs is not only a characteristic human trait but one of the things that made us human in the first place. Once our ancestors could walk on two legs, they began to do many of the things that apes cannot do: cross wide open spaces, manipulate complex tools, communicate with new signal systems, and light fires. Titled after the last two words of Darwin's Descent of Man and written by a leading scholar of human evolution, Lowly Origin is the first ...

The essential mammal guide to take on safari, covering every African land mammal.Originally published in 2004, the Kingdon Pocket Guide to African Mammals quickly became the field guide of choice to take on African safaris. Its compact format makes it ideal for use in the field, while its coverage is the most comprehensive currently possible in this format.Adapted from the Kingdon Field Guide to African Mammals, the greatly condensed text ...

This is the definitive field guide to African Mammals, fully revised and updated following the publication of the groundbreaking Mammals of Africa (2013).Jonathan Kingdon, one of the world's foremost authorities on African mammals, has both written and illustrated this landmark field guide. The unique combination of his extensive field experience and artistic talent has produced a stunning work that sets new standards.The concise text provides full...

***SHORTLISTED FOR THE JAMES CROPPER WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR NATURE WRITING**LONGLISTED FOR THE 2022 BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE*Shortlisted for Waterstones’s “Book of the Year 2022”One of:The New Yorker’s “The Best Books of 2022 So Far”Telegraph’s “50 best books of 2022”Sapiens for natural history: a stirring, eye-opening journey into deep time, from the Ice Age to the first appearance of microbial life 550 million ...

A Los Angeles Times BestsellerNew York Times best-selling author Brian Fagan explores the world of the Cro-Magnons--the mysterious, little-known race, famous for its cave paintings, that survived the Ice Age and became the ancestors of today's humans.They survived by their wits in a snowbound world, hunting, and sometimes being hunted by, animals many times their size. By flickering firelight, they drew bison, deer, and ma...

Join QI's expedition into the animal kingdom to encounter 100 of its most remarkable subjects. Marvel at the elephants that walk on tiptoe, pigs that shine in the dark, and the woodlouse that drinks through its bottom.Albatrosses can fly non-stop for ten years without touching the ground. Box jellyfish have twenty-four eyes. Geese mourn their dead. Koalas don't drink. Monkeys pay to look at porn. Lobsters live for a century. Mice sing while having sex. Spiders can fly....

A blend of history, science, philosophy, and environmentalism, The Tree is an engaging and elegant look at the life of the tree and what modern research tells us about their future.There are redwoods in California that were ancient by the time Columbus first landed, and pines still alive that germinated around the time humans invented writing. There are Douglas firs as tall as skyscrapers, and a banyan tree in Calcutta as big as a football field.Fr...

"An audacious and concrete proposal…Half-Earth completes the 86-year-old Wilson’s valedictory trilogy on the human animal and our place on the planet." —Jedediah Purdy, New RepublicIn his most urgent book to date, Pulitzer Prize–winning author and world-renowned biologist Edward O. Wilson states that in order to stave off the mass extinction of species, including our own, we must move swiftly to preserve the biodiversity of our planet. In this "vi...

Winner of the 2021 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction * Finalist for the 2020 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction * Finalist for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing AwardA “delving, haunted, and poetic debut” (The New York Times Book Review) about the awe-inspiring lives of whales, revealing what they can teach us about ourselves, our planet, and our relationship with other species.When writer Rebecca Giggs encount...

Eloquent, practical and wise, this book by one of the world’s most important scientists—and two time Pulitzer Prize winner—should be read and studied by anyone concerned with the fate of the natural world. It "makes one thing clear ... we know what we do, and we have a choice" (The New York Times Book Review).E.O. Wilson assesses the precarious state of our environment, examining the mass extinctions occurring in our time and the natural treasures we are a...