Trees of life

About this book

For the past 450 years, tree-like branching diagrams have been created to show the complex and surprising interrelationships of organisms, both living and fossil, from viruses and bacteria to birds and mammals. The author has chosen 230 trees of life - from among thousands of possible contenders - dating from the sixteenth century to the present day. His chronological arrangement gives readers a visual sense of the historical development of these diagrams and reveals the history of human theories of evolution. The earliest tree of life examples were meant to portray the imagined temporal order in which God created life on Earth. More recent scientific trees represent hypothetical histories of life.--From book jacket.