THE CO-CREATION

A gripping account of the entwined histories of life and Earth, from the planet's beginnings to the emergence of life four billion years ago, to the present day.

Judson argues that life and the inanimate planet have mutually created the other, the activities of living beings transforming the planet, and these transformations influencing, in turn, the evolution of life. She first outlined some of these ideas in a scientific paper, "The energy expansions of evolution," which she published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Ecology and Evolution in 2017. The Atlantic described it as "a grand new theory", and the paper has been cited by researchers in fields from planetary science and paleontology to microbiology and ecology.

More than a decade-long project, THE CO-CREATION is a grand synthesis of research from diverse fields in the natural and life sciences, and an original argument about the genesis and evolution of life on Earth. Written in accessible and vivid language, this book will forever change how we as readers see ourselves and our planetary home.

Olivia Judson is an award-winning writer and an evolutionary biologist with a doctorate in biological sciences from the University of Oxford. A former science journalist for The Economist, she has written for National Geographic, The Atlantic, and The New York Times. Her first book, Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation (Metropolitan Books, 2002), has been translated into twenty languages, was made into a television show, and was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction and the BIOSIS Prize from the Zoological Society of London.