The Earth Machine by Edmond A. Mathez and James D. Webster, Columbia University Press, $39.95, ISBN 023112578X
TO my mind, one of the truly great scientific achievements of the 20th century has been the uncovering of the workings of the Earth. It has become clear that our planet is far more than just an inert piece of the solar system, but rather it is a dynamic place that operates, from its innermost core to the outer fringes of the atmosphere, as one vast interconnected system. But it has only been in the last 10 years or so that this revelation has begun to reach a wider audience.
So how do Edmond Mathez and James Webster go about broadcasting the news? Their starting point is one of the many museums that now have permanent exhibitions about the Earth: the American Museum of Natural History, New York, whose display opened in 1999. Let me say right away that this is a handsome and well-written book, in full colour and jammed full of geological information about the Earth. The authors have divided it up thematically. How has Earth evolved? Why are there oceans, continents and mountains? What is climate and what causes climate change? There is perhaps less of the 鈥渉ow or why we know鈥� and more of the 鈥渨hat we know鈥�.
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The down side of this sort of structure is that it makes the book more difficult to read from cover to cover, because there is no overall logical progression in understanding or scientific discovery, and non-geological readers are sometimes faced unexpectedly with geological concepts or terminology before they have been fully introduced.
Having said this, The Earth Machine certainly is a very useful book to dip into if you are interested in the geology of our planet. It does not pull any punches when it comes to chemical equations and numerical data so be prepared for a text sprinkled with acronyms, dimensions, physical quantities and dates. But there is usually a nice mix of historical examples and stories that help to both lighten the read and convey a deeper scientific understanding. I commend the authors for the thoroughness, accuracy (though one might quibble on occasion where a corner is perhaps cut a little too much) and detail they give to so many parts of the Earth Sciences. I shall certainly recommend this book to my students.