Fossils, far from being mere dry bones, provide the key to understanding the stuff of history: past climates, evolution, and extinction. In this lively introduction, Richard Fortey offers an engaging and lucid explanation of how fossils are a product of our endlessly evolving habitat. The story begins with the Precambrian era, more than 600 million years ago. As Fortey traces the history of life from the dawn of the Precambrian to the present, he paints a vivid picture of the emergence of the plants and animals that we would recognize today. Unlike so many works on fossils that focus on dinosaurs, this book covers a broad range of animals and plants and does justice to the numerical superiority of invertebrate fossils.

The scope of the book is wide, including not only a history of paleontology but a review of those parts of general geology that are needed to appreciate the wealth of information contained in the fossil record: stratigraphy, measurements of paleotemperatures and radiometric ages, turbidites, reefs, sandstones, and so on. But the main emphasis of the book is on what paleontology is really about, how the paleontologist tries to figure out the ways in which fossil animals lived, and how geological processes such as plate tectonics have interacted with the history of life.

Fossils attempts to survey the contemporary paleontological scene in order to communicate the excitement of investigating the past. A primary goal of the book is to inspire and instruct the amateur fossil collector; hence, the specimens illustrated—many of which are presented in full color—are ones that are not too difficult for the amateur to collect. To aid the neophyte, the author has appended notes on the occurrence, significance, and preparation of each specimen. Of particular interest to the amateur are the discussions on how to collect fossils and on the economic and practical importance of fossils and their enclosing sediments. In striking a perfect balance between detail and generalization, Richard Fortey has written a book that will appeal to amateur and professional alike.