This Very Short Introduction presents a succinct and accessible guide to the key episodes in the story of life on earth - from the very origins of life four mil

There are many stories we can tell about the past, and we are not, perhaps, as free as we might imagine in our choice of which stories to tell, or where those s

Fossils have been vital to our understanding of the formation of the Earth and the origins of life on it. Keith Thomson presents an explanation of fossils as a

While children are a relatively unchanging fact of life, childhood is a constantly shifting concept. Throughout the millennia, the age at which a child becomes

This volume in Oxford's A Very Short Introduction series offers a concise, readable narrative of the vast span of American history, from the earliest human migr