bImmersive . . . bracingly ambitious . . . rewinds the story of life on Earth--from the mammoth steppe of the last Ice Age to the dawn of multicellular creatures over 500 million years ago.--iThe EconomistibrbbrbLONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE - One of those rare books that's both deeply informative and daringly imaginative.--Elizabeth Kolbert, author of iUnder a White Skyib pbONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR iThe New Yorkerib pThe past is past, but it does leave clues, and Thomas Halliday has used cutting-edge science to decipher them more completely than ever before. In iOtherlands, i Halliday makes sixteen fossil sites burst to life on the page. pThis book is an exploration of the Earth as it used to exist, the changes that have occurred during its history, and the ways that life has found to adapt8213or not. It takes us from the savannahs of Pliocene Kenya to watch a python chase a group of australopithecines into an acacia tree to a cliff overlooking the salt pans of the