Table of Contents:
| Prologue | 1 | ||
| Gaining Perspective | 9 | ||
| The Universe before the Renaissance | 12 | ||
| From the Renaissance to the Modern Age | 22 | ||
| Discovering the Universe | 42 | ||
| The Life and Death of Stars | 55 | ||
| Our Universe at Large | 77 | ||
| Our Home - Planet Earth | 91 | ||
| Geology in History | 94 | ||
| An Introduction to Earth | 99 | ||
| Planetary Evolution | 113 | ||
| The Concept of Geological Time | 117 | ||
| A Brief Walk Through Geological Time | 123 | ||
| Earth Climates and Ice Ages | 143 | ||
| Discovering the Ice Ages | 147 | ||
| Earth’s Climate System | 158 | ||
| Life On Earth | 189 | ||
| Biology in Pre-history and Antiquity | 194 | ||
| Biology from the Dark Ages to Enlightenment | 200 | ||
| From Biological Evolution to Genetics | 209 | ||
| The Evolution of Life | 235 | ||
| The Origin of Life Question | 240 | ||
| The First 3,000 Million Years of Life on Earth | 247 | ||
| The Evolution of Plant and Animal Life | 256 | ||
| Human Evolution | 294 | ||
| The Human Endeavor | 321 | ||
| The Dawn of Humankind | 323 | ||
| A Brief Walk Through Human Pre-history | 325 | ||
| The Enigma of Human Culture Evolution | 342 | ||
| The Promise of Civilization | 352 | ||
| From Tribal Cultures | 363 | ||
| To Species Civilization | 371 | ||
| The Future of Life | 381 | ||
| The End of Habitable Earth | 385 | ||
| The Predictability of Mass Extinctions | 388 | ||
| An Ever-Changing World | 395 | ||
| The Future of Evolution | 403 | ||
| Epilogue | 417 | ||
| Notes | 425 | ||
| Media Credits | 443 | ||
| List of Abbreviations | 451 | ||
| References | 453 | ||
| Bibliography | 461 | ||
| Glossary | 467 | ||
| Name Index | 477 | ||