Never've thought geology could be presented in such exciting manner; I'm quite a nerd, but usually this subject of science has me bluntly dubious.

Though, now I consider myself somewhat intellectually moved by the author's abillity to convey information with... actually a decent attempt at storytelling.

If by some fiat, I had to restrict all this writing to one sentence; this is the one I would choose: the summit of Mount Everest is marine limestone.”
― John McPhee, Annals of the Former World



What I absolutely love about McPhee's nonfiction is his ability to write about place, people and ideas with both beautiful prose and amazing intimacy. My favorite parts are where McPhee weaves place and people, or people and ideas together and establishes the grand metaphor for his book. McPhee picks up pieces of conversation with geologists and their satelites that might get missed by most other writers, but manages to find, keep and eventually place these nuggets into his book (written over 20 years) in a way that works to support his big themes.

Seriously, this book is one of my favorite nonfiction works of all time. You can see the mark McPhee left on his students' writing if you've ever read Robert Wright, Richard Preston or New Yorker editor David Remnick. Some consider McPhee to be the godfather of New New Journalism, but he is much more than that. IMHO, he is the godfather of modern nonfiction writing, period.

requested via library

wow. talk about style being mimetic of content. mcphee is a master on many levels. this isn't a book so much as an experience, which if the reader is present and committed will impart to him a true measure of geologic time.

A compendium of incredibly readable and illuminating books about the Earth's geology and geologists, with focus on plate tectonics. There's nothing like this book anywhere. It puts the scale of the universe into your mind so that you can comprehend the sliver of time and space available to the individual human, and start to picture the vastness of time and space in general. You'll start seeing the pictures in rocks, the histories in roadcuts.

A beautifully written book, however it does have a few shortcomings. For starters, it is very difficult to follow if you're not already well versed in the naming/dates of geologic eras. Second, it could use significantly more pictures and maps (there are practically none). Geology is a visual field... Third, it is a bit outdated. Finally, the author's repeated insistence that geologists aren't real geologists, or can't be competent geologists, unless they spend significant amounts of time in the field, is insulting. Most of us aren't lucky enough to get paid to spend months at a time backpacking around taki y samples and drawing maps. For starters, most of what we can learn from the surface has already been discovered. Ironically, almost all of the major questions the book raises that had yet to be addressed or answered 30+ years ago have since been addressed thanks to the modern geologists who sit at computers all day. Another chapter with modern updates or revisions would be very welcomed.

This was a great book to read. It is long but allows you to enter a state of mind of the geologist and see deep time. Many times as I read the story of the field geologists I had wished I read this book 15 years ago because it could have led me to a field where I enjoy collaborating with as you investigate the mysteries of rocks and continental formations. The book does not just give you a bunch of facts, it weaves a story of the north american continent and the people investigating these mysteries. Many times I put myself in the shoes of these field geologists, understanding the dichotomy between an appreciation of the nature and the extractive necessities of modern life. I think I would have enjoyed being a field geologist in California or Wyoming.

A geological accounting of the creation North America, broad in scope, but stitched together with biopic interludes of geologists and the history of geological study. A fantastic read for anyone that enjoys contemplating deep time and Earthly transformations. At times the writing is pedantic to the point of tedium, but that might simply be this biologist’s bias about geology.

Once upon a time I was a geology student. In gloomy Victorian halls and on sunny limestone outcrops we tried to get siltstones and schists and garnets to sing to us, to reveal their secrets.

Sadly, as in all the sciences, many geologists aren't very good storytellers. That's why we have John McPhee. Through his prose, mountains tell their stories. While the stories collected in Annals of the Former World, don't compare to his masterful The Control of Nature, their still pretty wonderful. Geology is the centerpiece, but it's also biography, human history, and aesthetics. Landscape is no longer two-dimensional, but four-dimensional and visionary.

Four books. Two decades of research. Thousands of geology terms you’ve never heard of before.

Alright, so I didn’t actually count the terms. But it’s a lot.

McPhee’s four books on geology and geologists is a testament to everything that makes McPhee a treasure - the intense research, the expert organization of ideas, the melange of scientific and human narratives. His writing is precise, but not boring. The difference between McPhee and a novelist is like the difference between a documentary filmmaker and one who creates....I don’t know, non-documentary films? What’s the word for that?

Fair warning - a lot of what I read went over my head. I cannot now explain orogenies, plate tectonics, or zircon dating to the extent that it was explained to me in these books. Not even close. Don’t read this if you feel a need to understand every bit of what you read.

Pro tip: if you would like to give yourself some geologic foundation before reading, listen to Nick Zentner geology podcast.

If you were to only read one of the four books, I suggest Rising from the Plains.

Why read about geology?

1) I personally would read anything McPhee writes at this point. If he comes out with a book on income tax, I’d order my copy tomorrow.

2) When was your last geology class? Because mine was sixth grade. Geology doesn’t get near the attention as other sciences (deserved or not), so reading these books has a new-ness and adeventure-ness to it for most of us non-geologists.

3) “ ‘People look upon the natural world as if all motions of the past had set the stage for us and were now frozen.’ Moore’s remarked. ‘They look out on a scene like this and think, It was all made for us— even if the San Andreas fault is at their feet. [...] the time we’re in is just as active as the past.’ “

This book was a gift from a good friend who gave it to me when I switched from biology to geology as a major in college. In "Annals of the Former World" McPhee takes us on a journey through time and space by examining the geology of North America (mostly) along I-80. It's been 11 years since I graduated, and longer since I read the book, but I remember the material I learned in my classes that last year of college really coming to life as I read the McPhee's evocative language. McPhee's essays are, as far as I could tell, technically accurate and way more interesting than any geology text I have ever read, so if you're interested in geology and want to learn it in a fun way, I'd highly recommend this book. In fact, I'll probably drag it along with me next time I take a long country drive just to reacquaint myself with the amazing geology you can see just watching out the window.

Now having read, finally, all four of McPhee's previous books on the geology of the fortieth parallel—roughy along the length of Interstate 80 from New York City to San Francisco—I can claim to have read this series-ending compendium volume which includes these four works in total. There is also a new, short chapter, "Crossing the Craton," some 45 pages, which I read at the Barnes & Noble "library." This later material, rather superficially and uninterestingly, links his coverage of the Appalachians in In Supect Terrain with his in-the-field treatment of Wyoming in Rising from the Plains.

McPhee also includes a helpful table of contents and an index. The terrain maps illustrating the topography and fault lines are much improved in clarity over those included in the four earlier books, and several more are added at a smaller scale to illustrate some of the local geology he covers: for example, a map of all the fault lines in the San Francisco Bay area. McPhee also notes that all of the older books have been edited for clarity and redundancy, and have been updated in the light of new science, but only if needed to avoid serious misstatements.

Each of the four books surprisingly differ in the type of experience McPhee offers the reader. My favorite, Rising from the Plains, weaves an emotionally engaging story of several generations of settlers and geologists with the tremendous geology found in Wyoming. McPhee creates an alternating rhythm of science and human drama that grips the reader and builds to a climax which neatly exposes the unbridgable environmental gap between conservationists and developers.

My least favorite book, Assembling California, in contrast, is mostly about "dry" plate tectonics, much of it in other parts of the world than California. Of all the four books in the series, here McPhee most forcefully—and unnecessarily—makes his, or rather the scientists' case, for plate tectonics. There is also an awkward chapter interleaving drinking wine iin the Napa Valley with geology: it didn't work. The best chapter is the last, a set piece about the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, where McPhee again displays his unique ability to merge geology with human experience in a truly moving way. (Both McPhee and I both barely missed experiencing it first-hand: he by 100 hours, me by one week.)

Considered individually and in isolation, the four books included in Annals of the Former World vary in quality and interest, and don't quite rise to real greatness above and beyond their fascinating geological content. But when perceived and presented here in total, as a completed twenty-year project in creative non-fiction, and one that almost singlehandedly defined the genre, it is a classic well worth its 1999 Pulitzer Prize.