Thomas Halliday is a palaeontologist and evolutionary biologist. He holds a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship at the University of Birmingham, and is a scientific associate of the Natural History Museum. His research combines theoretical and real data to investigate long-term patterns in the fossil record, particularly in mammals. Thomas was the winner of the Linnean Society's John C. Marsden Medal in 2016 and the Hugh Miller Writing Competition in 2018.
“A poet among paleontologists . . . Think of a series of immense
and immersive museum dioramas, with no glass separating you from
the action. . . . The narrative becomes shockingly real and
immediate, as individual dramas and entire, vibrant panoramas
unfold in what feels like real time.”—The Wall Street Journal
“Written with gusto and bravado . . . Otherlands is a verbal
feast. You feel like you are there on the Mammoth Steppe, some
20,000 years ago, as frigid winds blow off the glacial
front.”—Steve Brusatte, Scientific American
“Halliday’s brilliantly imaginative reconstructions, his deft
marshalling of complex science, offers a thrilling experience
of deep-time nature for pop-science buffs.”—Library Journal
(starred review)
“Halliday takes an energizing spin through Earth’s past in
his magnificent debut. . . . This show-stopping work
deserves wide readership.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Otherlands is one of those rare books that are both deeply
informative and daringly imaginative. It will change the way you
look at the history of life, and perhaps also its
future.”—Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Under a White Sky: The Nature
of the Future
“Kaleidoscopic and evocative . . . [Halliday] takes quiet fossil
records and complex scientific research and brings them alive—Maybe
most important, Otherlands is a timely reminder of our planet’s
impermanence and what we can learn from the past.”—Andrea Wulf,
author of The Invention of Nature
“A book of almost unimaginable riches . . . This is an utterly
serious piece of work, meticulously evidence-based and epically
cinematic. Or rather, beyond cinematic. The writing is so
palpably alive.”—The Sunday Times (U.K.)
“A fascinating journey through Earth’s history . . . To read
Otherlands is to marvel not only at these unfamiliar lands and
creatures, but also that we have the science to bring them to life
in such vivid detail.”—New Scientist
“Vivid . . . An intricate analysis of our planet's interconnected
past, it is impossible to come away from Otherlands without awe for
what may lie ahead.”—Independent
“The best book on the history of life on Earth I have ever
read.”—Tom Holland, author of Dominion
“Deep time is very hard to capture—even to imagine—and yet Thomas
Halliday has done so in this fascinating volume. He wears his grasp
of vast scientific learning lightly; this is as close to time
travel as you are likely to get.”—Bill McKibben, author of Falter:
Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?
“Absolutely gripping . . . Earth has been many different worlds
over its planetary history, and Thomas Halliday is the perfect
tour guide to these past landscapes and the extraordinary creatures
that inhabited them.”—Lewis Dartnell, author of Origins: How the
Earth’s History Shaped Human History
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