Thomas Halliday

Step onto volcanic plains and watch thundering herds of dinosaurs crash through thick forests. Dive into a sea of glass reefs, emerging from the water to see monkeys fighting for survival on an accidental raft . . . Travel millions of years into the past, and explore worlds you might only have dreamt of, but that actually existed. From woolly mammoths to early humans, find out how plants and trees and creatures great and small shared a world very different from our own. And uncover the footprints they left behind . . . Starting with the last ice age and ending when the very first animals started to swim and hunt, this illustrated journey back through time is adapted from the bestselling Otherlands by Thomas Halliday. It is written by the author, with illustrations by Gavin Scott.

FOYLES NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEARA SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLERTHE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR NATURE WRITING - HIGHLY COMMENDEDLONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTIONA BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE SUNDAY TIMES, TELEGRAPH, PROSPECT, THE NEW YORKER AND BBC HISTORY WATERSTONES NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE MONTH'The best book on the history of life on Earth I have ever read' Tom Holland'Epically cinematic... A book of almost unimaginable riches' Sunday TimesThis is the past as we've never seen it before. Otherlands is an epic, exhilarating journey into deep time, showing us the Earth as it used to exist, and the worlds that were here before ours. Award-winning young palaeobiologist Thomas Halliday immerses us in a series of ancient landscapes, from the mammoth steppe in Ice Age Alaska to the lush rainforests of Eocene Antarctica, with its colonies of giant penguins, to Ediacaran Australia, where the moon is far brighter than ours today. We visit the birthplace of humanity; we hear the crashing of the highest waterfall the Earth has ever known; and we watch as life emerges again after the asteroid hits, and the age of the mammal dawns. Otherlands is a staggering imaginative feat: an emotional narrative that underscores the tenacity of life - yet also the fragility of seemingly permanent ecosystems, including our own. To read it is to see the last 500 million years not as an endless expanse of unfathomable time, but as a series of worlds, simultaneously fabulous and familiar. Sunday Times bestseller, March 2023

"Immersive . . . bracingly ambitious . . . rewinds the story of life on Earth--from the mammoth steppe of the last Ice Age to the dawn of multicellular creatures over 500 million years ago."--The EconomistLONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE - "One of those rare books that's both deeply informative and daringly imaginative."--Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Under a White Sky ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, Prospect (UK) The past is past, but it does leave clues, and Thomas Halliday has used cutting-edge science to decipher them more completely than ever before. In Otherlands, Halliday makes sixteen fossil sites burst to life on the page. This book is an exploration of the Earth as it used to exist, the changes that have occurred during its history, and the ways that life has found to adapt―or not. It takes us from the savannahs of Pliocene Kenya to watch a python chase a group of australopithecines into an acacia tree; to a cliff overlooking the salt pans of the empty basin of what will be the Mediterranean Sea just as water from the Miocene Atlantic Ocean spills in; into the tropical forests of Eocene Antarctica; and under the shallow pools of Ediacaran Australia, where we glimpse the first microbial life. Otherlands also offers us a vast perspective on the current state of the planet. The thought that something as vast as the Great Barrier Reef, for example, with all its vibrant diversity, might one day soon be gone sounds improbable. But the fossil record shows us that this sort of wholesale change is not only possible but has repeatedly happened throughout Earth history. Even as he operates on this broad canvas, Halliday brings us up close to the intricate relationships that defined these lost worlds. In novelistic prose that belies the breadth of his research, he illustrates how ecosystems are formed; how species die out and are replaced; and how species migrate, adapt, and collaborate. It is a breathtaking achievement: a surprisingly emotional narrative about the persistence of life, the fragility of seemingly permanent ecosystems, and the scope of deep time, all of which have something to tell us about our current crisis.

“Suverän ... En episk, nästan hallucinatorisk naturhistoria om livet på jorden … Bländande”The TelegraphFörsvunna världarär en upptäcktsfärd på jorden, sådan den en gång var. Här väcker den unge paleobiologen Thomas Halliday liv i svunna tiders annorlunda landskap, djur och växter. Med litterär elegans och populärvetenskaplig tyngd skildras jordens och livets historia – massutdöenden, evolutionära språng, våldsamma klimatförändringar och kringdrivande kontinenter. Hur många vet att Medelhavet för fem miljoner år sedan var en uttorkad avgrund, som sedan fylldes när Atlanten bröt sig igenom vid Gibraltar och skapade det största vattenfall världen någonsin skådat? Eller att Sydamerikas alla apor härstammar från en enda liten grupp föregångare som drev dit över havet på en flytande ö, lossriven från en flodstrand i Afrika? Boken är en lyrisk naturforskares reseskildring i förfluten tid, där främmande landskap träder fram i dramatisk skönhet. Livets historia är inte bara en ofattbart ändlös tidsrymd utan en svit av världar, sagolika men på något sätt ändå välbekanta."sällan har en sakprosaförfattare skrivit så suggestivt som Halliday. Han skriver om tornseglarna, som ”lever som gapande skrik i vinden”, om ”giraffens karismatiskt gängliga ovighet” och om att ”kontinenterna kan dansa runt varandra”. Här har översättaren Claes Bernes gjort ett strålande jobb." DN"Likt en sir David Attenborough reser Halliday ut i världen och återskapar försvunna miljöer och iakttar på plats djur och växters kamp om överlevnad ... Det är en häpnadsväckande färd." Bo Eriksson, Clio"Med ett mycket målande språk, ibland med rent poetiska valörer, förmedlar Halliday vetenskap för lekmannen. Författaren besitter djupa kunskaper om utvecklingen av livet på jorden." Dala-Demokraten”Episk som en film … Språket är så handgripligt levande. En bok med nästan ofattbara rikedomar. Den kan mycket väl bli det bästa jag läser 2022 – och ändå är det bara januari”Sunday Times“En fängslande världsturné genom förhistoriskt liv... Häpnadsväckande." Financial Times“Suggestiv ... Det är omöjligt att lägga ifrån sig Försvunna världar utan att känna respekt inför vad som kan komma i framtiden”The Independent”Uppslukande … inspirerande ambitiös … går bakåt i historien om livet på jorden – från den senaste istidens mammutstäpp till de flercelliga varelsernas uppkomst för mer än 500 miljoner år sedan”The Economist“Enastående ... Genial ... Ett verk vars enorma fantasifullhet är fast förankrad i gedigen vetenskap”The Scotsman

Thomas Halliday is relatively little known by anyone in the Reformed community today, much less the Christian community. This is a tragedy. His sermons are beyond excellent. They are exegetically outstanding and practically powerful as Reformed sermons should be. It is a sad providence that more of his writings are not in print. As a result of this first volume being reproduced for our day, no doubt, more of Halliday's works will soon come to light. Sufficient for today is this volume which contains a "Memoir" by Andrew Symington, and seven theologically rich sermons by Halliday which comprise important Christian doctrines: the first and greatest commandment, the doctrine of regeneration, the doctrine of perseverance of the saints, the doctrine of God's sovereignty and other gems.