The Energy of Species

Where did we come from? What does it mean to be 'alive'? And what is our place in the cosmos?

In her twenty-year journey to answer these questions, Olivia Judson has travelled to all seven continents and dived in several seas; she has made mental journeys to other worlds - the Moon, Venus, Mars; she has travelled back in time, haunted the rock collections of natural history museums, read scores of books and thousands of papers. The Co-Creation proposes a radical new way of understanding life on Earth: not as a story written in genes and DNA, but as one driven by energy.

Judson divides the history of our planet into five great epochas - rock, light, oxygen, flesh and fire - each marked by the unlocking of a new source of energy. Through these transformations, she argues, Earth evolved from a barren, asteroid-pummelled wasteland to the unique planet we inhabit today.

However, just as Earth made life, life itself became a powerful geological force that reshaped Earth - shifting the positions of continents, upheaving mountain ranges, changing the colour of the sky and causing vast oceans to open and close.

The Co-Creation reveals we are not merely occupiers of this planet, but integral to its very existence.