Annals of the former world is an omnibus of McPhee's writing on North American geology. It includes four of his previous books plus an extended coda relating to the mid-continent geology. He writes well, and engagingly, although the continuing immersion in hard-science geology proves a bit much for one book. As a result I read the first two books included, Basin and Range and also In Suspect Terrain, as well as the coda, Crossing the Craton. I will hold off and read the two remaining books, Rising From the Plains, and Assembling California, individually at a later time.

Basin and Range details the history and internal structure of the landforms that characterize Nevada and Western Utah. In this narrative McPhee travels with a geologist expert in the topic, Kenneth Deffeyes, of Princeton University. The account includes not only instruction and explanation by Deffeyes, but McPhee's own detailed exposition and guidance to useful literature on the topic and region. This is the format applied throughout the omnibus. McPhee quickly exposes the reader to the vocabulary of geology. At times he treats it as a literary opportunity and seemingly plays with the words for their effect alone.

The travel companion in book two, In Suspect Terrain, is Anita Harris, a respected research geologist in the U. S. Geological Survey. A native of Brooklyn, she told McPhee, "I knew that if I went into geology I would never have to live in New York City." Their travel takes them on I-80 from New Jersey to Chicago, examining geological profiles, almost roadcut by roadcut, along the way. McPhee develops the history and content of the geological theory of drifting continents, or tectonic plates. This gained widespread acceptance following research in the 1960s. Harris serves a a bit of a foil to the theory. She accepts, and incorporates parts of the theory, but not all. Her sense is that the proponents are too accepting, not taking time to explain away discrepancies.

The mid-continent shows few rocks. This region was geologically stable, lacking the mountain building of Nevada or the Northeast. Here the basement rocks lie covered with soil. To see Nebraska's underlying rocks, one must go to Colorado. There those rocks have been uplifted and exposed. McPhee finds his specialist tutor on this region in University of Kansas professor Randy Van Schmus at the University geology field camp in Colorado. The rock layers under examination are ancient, from before life on earth to leave behind fossil remains. To differentiate and determine the age of these rocks such markers as their magnetism and chemistry must be found. McPhee and Van Schmus detail the technology that provides such information. It is a mind-boggling process.

Annals is an ultimately informing book. It also instills a sense of wonder about the natural world, especially with regard to the concept of time. One can relate fairly easily to the idea of billions of dollars (though we personally may not deal in those figures), but the idea of billions of years remains unfathomable. And yet, that is the reality, 4.5 billion years, at the heart of this book. The science, the vocabulary, and the shifting locations make this book a challenge. Can you create a map in your head? A suggestion is to try one of the individual earlier titles; the reduced bulk may make the challenge seem more manageable. Taken one at a time, the two books covered here would rank as 4 stars each.

This book was a very pleasant surprise to me. Not only is it an amazing read, but I'll have to put it somewhere in my all-time top 10 most wonderful books. McPhee manages to enlighten, educate, and entertain all in this one volume.

The subject matter is, of course, geology. However, it's also about Time; vast stretches of time and how they relate to the wee intervals of human time. While much of the science in this book is theoretical, it is mostly accepted as being the nearest approximation to what actually occurred on this rock in the last four-or-so billion years.

While McPhee focuses mostly on the continental U.S., he can't help but explain similar occurrences around and within the globe. Geology to me is an interesting subject, but one that I never really did more than scratch the surface, so to speak, in learning about. I'm very glad I read this book.

Even though, it's only distantly related to the science of Paleontology, for some reason it reminded me very much of another favorite author's musings... Loren Eiseley. I would most definitely recommend reading McPhee's Annals. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

This is a classic. There are only two kinds of geologists working in the western US; those that have read this book and those that will read this book. It can be a little uneven but McPhee’s interests in his topic is apparent as is his admiration for the men that sorted out the geology he describes and description of the geology and geologic processes is usually pretty good. If you like the outdoors or plan to drive across the country, it’s probably worth reading this book. It will make the trip more interesting.

This is a remarkable accomplishment of a book. Consists of 5 books put together into one large tome. Each book represents a travel adventure with a different geologist to a different part of America. There is usually a story told about the background of the geologist, but most of the narrative is about geology, hardcore geology. This seems capable of being a geology textbook, albeit a well-written and enjoyable one.

At least half of the book goes into way too much detail and goes over most everyone's head. It is remarkable that McPhee was able to write a geology textbook encapsulated in a larger work. He covers Nevada, the Appalachians, Wyoming, and California, with multiple forays to other places around the world. The last book is quite short and not nearly as good as the other 5, it covers the midcontinent craton.

As another reviewer said, one quote from the book sums up the book, and indeed the geologic history of the planet, quite well - that the summit of Mt. Everest is marine limestone.

The book was mainly written throughout the 1980s, and as such is somewhat dated in its science. Plate tectonics is quite established at this point, though one of the geologists in the book was pretty skeptical - it was fairly new at the time. I would love something like this to be written today - surely lots would be the same, but there would be plenty of differences.

This is the sort of book that inspires people to become geologists. However it is also quite intimidating in its size and depth. It would have been much more easily consumed I guess the way it was originally written, as separate pieces. The book about California went into really interesting detail about the mid-19th century California gold rush, where it was and how the gold was mined. The books covering California and Wyoming were the best done.

I have read the four McPhee geology/tectonics books in the past, but enjoyed re-reading all four over the summer in this combined edition. McPhee weaves how North America has come together in tectonic waves with the lives of the field geologists who uncovered the story. My favorite section is Rising from the Plains, the story of USGS field geologist David Love. Love was born in the center of Wyoming in 1913 and became the pre-eminent expert on Rocky Mountain geology. The stories of Love's childhood and life in Wyoming and his insights into how the Rockies developed are engrossing. McPhee describes lives, science and history in a way that is rarely dry.
In this book, McPhee adds a fifth essay on the Midwest geology from Illinois to Nebraska and how modern technology has allowed us to understand the Precambrian geology beneath the soil of the Midwest.

I love the way McPhee describes processes that have evolved over millions of years so that you can envision the movement that took place. The books bring perspective to how short a period of time humans have been on earth and the forces that ultimately shape the planet. There are two scales of time, human and earth/space time. Just as it is always interesting to stare into the night sky and imagine its depth, it was great to read and think about how this planet and it's life forms have changed over 4.6 billion years.

Read these books together in this volume or separately and gain new thoughts into how the mountains, hills, oceans and lakes around us developed.

John McPhee could make anything exciting, and it turns out geology actually is exciting but, like a math class (for me, at least), requires the right teacher to make the concepts come alive. The writing is beautiful and McPhee makes complex, vast ranges of time actually somewhat accessible to the human mind. Scale and time become grasp-able even when all the measurements are beyond anything we can actually conceive of existing or happening. I’m a convert. The vocabulary is daunting but I decided to just let it wash over me. I’m glad I did. The overall effect of this writing is that it makes you feel much smarter than when you started; opened up to a whole new curiosity you didn’t even know was so fascinating. This book is so dense and complex that I could probably read it 10 more times and feel like I still had very little grasp on North American geological history. It’s digestible a few pages at a time, though! And, really, you could pick it up anywhere in the book and read a few random pages and come away satisfied. I loved every minute. I also love that it’s renewed my confidence in my ability to read gigantic books! Ha!

Annals of the Former World was my opportunity to fall in love with John McPhee's books.
I studied Geology in college because the puzzle of the rock record is a passion. John McPhee has the rare and wonderful ability to understand the passion in a subject and make it come alive.
This Pulitzer Prize winning book is a compilation of 5 earlier books written over the course of (I think) more than 20 years. It explains, through the words of the geologists he tags along with, the assemblage of the north American continent.
I know that sounds dry, but I defy anyone to read portions such as the minute by minute description of the Loma Prieta earthquake in "Assembling California" and not be sitting on the edge of your seat!
Generally, my philosophy is there are too many books I want to read and too little time so I don't reread books. This is one of only 3 books I've reread multiple times.

An amazing read of you are into geology but aren’t entirely super educated on it- though definitely helps to already have some of the base understanding. I’m in California right now and being able to look at rock outcrops and see how the earth moved as explained by the book was very exciting.
Going to be staring at more rock outcrops for sure.

No question that this is an ambitious endeavor: 600+ pages on the geologic history of the US as traced across I-80. No way I would have finished it without the accountability of reading along with a friend. Lots to love about it: some genuinely fascinating geology facts & history, the impressively complex technical structure, and a regular sprinkling of "McPhee bangers" as we called them - sentences that just nail an observation.

It's also suuuper shaggy in places and I wanted a few more consistent throughlines.

A little out of date, but the only book to tackle the topic at an easy and interesting read. I used the audio version for several of the sections, but had the paper copy handy to look at the graphics, of which there could have been more. I'd like to see someone's update, and also to find the same slightly-more-than-layman read on other areas, such as the Brevard Zone in the southeast US. Someone should also come up with an annotated version as a travel guide, with lat/long of the points of interest.

It turns out rocks are amazing. It only took 3.96 thousand million years to produce a John McPhee to make them page turning reading. Don’t wait geological time to read this book.

This books within a book about the very American ground we walk on every day was really cool. I only got through book one, but plan on finishing the rest soon, especially book three, a detailed description of this volcanic playground that I live on - Wyoming and Idaho. I learned a ton of really cool stuff, like the top of Mt. Everest is made of marine sediment! That geologists search the countryside for roadcuts like dogs looking for soup bones! That Wyoming's ground contains every layer of time since the beginning of Earth. If you like rocks or geology at all, this book, er, rocks.