Becoming Earth
How Our Planet Came to Life
Published on 12. June 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
304 pages
978-1-5290-3820-0 (ISBN)
Description
The New York Times Bestseller.
A radically thought-provoking account of a major shift in how we understand our Earth, not simply as an inanimate planet on which life evolved, but rather as a planet that came to life.
'Full of conceptual twists and wonderful character' - Ed Yong, author of An Immense World
'Poetic . . . engaging . . . lucid' - The Times Literary Supplement
The notion of a living world is one of humanity's oldest beliefs. Though once scorned by many scientists, the concept of Earth as a vast interconnected living system has gained acceptance in recent decades. Life not only adapts to its surroundings - it also shapes them in dramatic and enduring ways.
Over billions of years, life transformed a lump of orbiting rock into our cosmic oasis, breathing oxygen into the atmosphere, concocting the modern oceans, and turning rock into fertile soil. Life is intertwined with Earth's capacity to regulate its climate and maintain balance.
Through compelling narrative, evocative descriptions and lucid explanations, Becoming Earth shows us how Earth became the world we've known, how it is rapidly becoming a very different world, and how we will determine what kind of Earth our descendants inherit for millennia to come.
'Wide-ranging and thought-provoking' - The Guardian
'A compelling account of interconnectedness' - New Scientist
A radically thought-provoking account of a major shift in how we understand our Earth, not simply as an inanimate planet on which life evolved, but rather as a planet that came to life.
'Full of conceptual twists and wonderful character' - Ed Yong, author of An Immense World
'Poetic . . . engaging . . . lucid' - The Times Literary Supplement
The notion of a living world is one of humanity's oldest beliefs. Though once scorned by many scientists, the concept of Earth as a vast interconnected living system has gained acceptance in recent decades. Life not only adapts to its surroundings - it also shapes them in dramatic and enduring ways.
Over billions of years, life transformed a lump of orbiting rock into our cosmic oasis, breathing oxygen into the atmosphere, concocting the modern oceans, and turning rock into fertile soil. Life is intertwined with Earth's capacity to regulate its climate and maintain balance.
Through compelling narrative, evocative descriptions and lucid explanations, Becoming Earth shows us how Earth became the world we've known, how it is rapidly becoming a very different world, and how we will determine what kind of Earth our descendants inherit for millennia to come.
'Wide-ranging and thought-provoking' - The Guardian
'A compelling account of interconnectedness' - New Scientist
Reviews / Votes
Poetic . . . engaging . . . lucid * The Times Literary Supplement * Vivid . . . eloquent . . . beautiful * The Wall Street Journal * Wide-ranging and thought-provoking * The Guardian * A compelling account of interconnectedness * New Scientist * An ode to life's ability to adapt, transform, and create the conditions for its own flourishing . . . Elegantly told * Los Angeles Review of Books * Mind-opening * The Atlantic * Wonderful * Big Think * Lyrical, smart . . . will make you appreciate our home planet in countless new ways -- NPR This is the book I'd been waiting for. It tells my favorite kind of science story: one that seems at first counter-intuitive, but then quickly becomes obviously true - a story so important and compelling that I am going to be recommending it for years. -- <b>Hank Green</b>, co-host of Vlogbrothers Becoming Earth is a glorious paean to our living world, full of achingly beautiful passages, mind-bending conceptual twists, and wonderful characters. Ferris Jabr reveals how Earth not only gave rise to life, and now teems with it, but has also been profoundly, miraculously shaped by it. -- <b>Ed Yong</b>, Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist and author of <i>An Immense World</i>, winner of the Royal Society Science Book Prize I did not expect to experience joy when I opened Becoming Earth, but I did, and I do. The ambition, eloquence, and erudition in this dragonfly droneflight of a book are absolutely exhilarating. -- <b>John Vaillant</b>, author of <i>Fire Weather</i> and winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize 2023 An astonishing book, weaving together science, history, and the author's unfailingly precise observations with the grace of a poet. -- <b>Steve Silberman</b>, author of <i>NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity</i>, winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize This wondrous book reveals our living planet for the miracle that it is. By the end, you may even feel that 'miracle' is an understatement. The story of Earth is the story of a planet reworked, remade - and, to an astonishing degree, created - by life itself. Wow. -- <b>Carl Safina</b>, author of <i>Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel</i> Fascinating, thought-provoking, and, ultimately, inspiring. -- <b>Elizabeth Kolbert</b>, author of <i>The Sixth Extinction</i>, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction Gorgeously written and brimming with fascinating science and provocative ideas -- <b>Dan Fagin</b>, author of <i>Toms River</i>, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction We tend to take our rare jewel of a home planet for granted. In his startlingly beautiful and insightful book, Becoming Earth, Ferris Jabr shows us exactly why we shouldn't. The Earth lives, breathes, and rewrites our history even as we read, reminding us once again that there is in fact no place like home. -- <b>Deborah Blum</b>, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of <i>The Poisoners' Handbook</i> and <i>The Poison Squad</i> A remarkable achievement: a loving homage to our glorious planet that's at once as thematically vast as the ocean, and as precise on the page as a fungal filament. Ferris Jabr, a science writer with a poet's soul, is among the few scribes worthy of serving as biographer for the life-encrusted rock we call home. -- <b>Ben Goldfarb</b>, author of <i>Eager</i> and winner of the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award Becoming Earth is the rare book that asks us to reexamine our fundamental understanding of the planet. Full of rich and surprising insights, it succeeds magnificently. -- <b>Joshua Foer</b>, author of <i>Moonwalking with Einstein</i> There are times, reading this paradigm-shifting book, when you will feel like you are peering right down into the very heart of our living planet. It is, quite simply, a work of genius. -- <b>Robert Moor</b>, author of <i>On Trails: An Exploration</i> In Becoming Earth, Ferris Jabr exalts life forms as artists of planetary change - microbes become sculptors, yaks are architects, and even forests dance. Jabr is a mesmerizing, even photosynthetic writer in his ability to draw deep meaning from all that he illuminates. -- <b>Sabrina Imbler</b>, author of <i>How Far the Light Reaches</i> A masterwork of journalism . . . Popular science writing at its very best -- <i>Kirkus Reviews</i>, starred review Jabr is an exceptional new science writer. -- Jury of the Whiting Foundation Grants for Creative Non-FictionMore details
Edition
Main Market Ed
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Pan Macmillan
Target group
Interest Age: From 18 years
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 195 mm
Width: 130 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
234 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5290-3820-0 (9781529038200)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
06/2024
Picador
€18.49
Available for download
Person
Ferris Jabr is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine and Scientific American. He has also written for The New Yorker, Harper's, The Atlantic, National Geographic, Foreign Policy, Wired, Outside, Lapham's Quarterly, McSweeney's, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, among other publications. He is a recipient of a Whiting Foundation Creative Nonfiction Grant and fellowships from UC Berkeley and the MIT Knight Science Journalism Program. His work has been anthologized in the 2014, 2020, and 2023 editions of Best American Science and Nature Writing. He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his husband, Ryan, their dog, Jack, and more plants than they can count. Becoming Earth is his first book.