How the Earth turned green : a brief 3.8-billion-year history of plants /

Armstrong (Illinois State Univ.) has written an amazing and wonderful book. It is so well written that it reads more like an engaging novel-one that readers cannot put down-than like a science book. Yet the style is not reduced or simplified science; instead, the author explains all this factual material with prose that is precise, accurate, and concise. The topics range from cosmology to the flowering plants (angiosperms), but this vertical track is accomplished without deviating from the essential task of describing the evolutionary history of photosynthesizing organisms and their relations to planet Earth. Along the way, readers are treated to a synthesis of fundamental stages in the evolution of life itself. This includes an excellent discussion about the origin of life, an even better explanation of the origins of autotrophy in prokaryotes, and a very good description of the endosymbiotic theory. The text is followed by a 141-page appendix that describes all the major photosynthetic groups (including bacteria). This is an exceedingly useful resource for students, which, to this reviewer's knowledge, does not exist anywhere else in such a compact form. Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries. --Paul K. Strother, Boston College