After four and a half billion years, our planet is approaching old age—the perfect time to look back on an extraordinary life with Earth: The Biography, both a landmark television series an timely book. Each chapter examines one of the five essential forces—meteor impacts, plate tectonics, the ocean, the atmosphere, and ice—that drive and shape our planet and determine its destiny. New imaging techniques and spectacular graphics combine to reveal hitherto hidden information about these forces, depicting them in action today as they keep the Earth alive and going back in time to show how cataclysmic events played roles in the planet's development.
