Coles, Peter. Cosmology: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2001. The Oxford “Very Short Introductions” provide brief
but expert introductions to important scienti¿ c ¿ elds.
Crosby, Alfred W. Children of the Sun: A History of Humanity’s
Unappeasable Appetite for Energy. New York and London: W. W. Norton,
- An overview of human energy use by one of the leading ¿ gures in
world history.
———. The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences
of 1492. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1972. A world history classic,
which describes the profound biological and economic impact of the coming
together of the Afro-Eurasian and American world zones from the 16th
century, and the consequent exchanges of diseases, crops, and goods between
the two zones.
Croswell, Ken. The Alchemy of the Heavens. Oxford and NY: Oxford
University Press, 1996. A ¿ ne introduction to the nature and history of stars.
Darwin, Charles. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: A
Facsimile of the First Edition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
- Darwin’s Origin of Species was ¿ rst published in 1859. He was a
superb writer and is still very much worth reading today. There are many
other editions of Origin of Species besides this.
Davies, Paul. The Fifth Miracle: The Search for the Origin of Life.
Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1999. A rich survey of debates about the
origins of life, by one of the best contemporary writers on science.
Davis, Mike. Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making
of the Third World. London and New York: Verso, 2001. An idiosyncratic
account of the convergence of climatic change and economic change in the
formation of the third world late in the 19th century.
Deacon, Terence W. The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of Language
and the Brain. Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1997. Not always easy