# The Co-Creation

Canonical: https://www.bookquiver.com/olivia-judson/the-co-creation/9780719521805

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- Book: [The Co-Creation](https://www.bookquiver.com/olivia-judson/the-co-creation) ([The Co-Creation.md](https://www.bookquiver.com/olivia-judson/the-co-creation.md))
- Authors: [Olivia Judson](https://www.bookquiver.com/olivia-judson)
- Publisher: John Murray
- ISBN: 978-07-1952-180-5
- Pages: 560
- Published: 2027-01-28
- Language: en_US
- Binding: Hardcover

## Description

'A LANDMARK WORK' - ED YONG'FASCINATING AND ORIGINAL' - YUVAL NOAH HARARI'A TRIUMPH!' - CAT BOHANNONWhere did we come from? What does it mean to be 'alive'? And what is our place in the cosmos? In her twenty-year journey to answer these questions, Olivia Judson has travelled to all seven continents and dived in several seas; she has made mental journeys to other worlds - the Moon, Venus, Mars; she has travelled back in time, haunted the rock collections of natural history museums, read scores of books and thousands of papers. The Co-Creation proposes a radical new way of understanding life on Earth: not as a story written in genes and DNA, but as one driven by energy. Judson divides the history of our planet into five great epochas - rock, light, oxygen, flesh and fire - each marked by the unlocking of a new source of energy. Through these transformations, she argues, Earth evolved from a barren, asteroid-pummelled wasteland to the unique planet we inhabit today. However, just as Earth made life, life itself became a powerful geological force that reshaped Earth - shifting the positions of continents, upheaving mountain ranges, changing the colour of the sky and causing vast oceans to open and close. The Co-Creation reveals we are not merely occupiers of this planet, but integral to its very existence.