A (Very) Short History of Life On EarthBy: Henry Gee Winner of the Royal Society Science Book. 'Exhilaratingly whizzes through billions of years . . . Gee is a marvellously engaging writer' The Times 4. 6 billion years of the story of life on Earth, in twelve concise chapters. Brief, brilliant and entirely gripping. For billions of years, Earth was an inhospitably alien place covered with churning seas, slowly crafting its landscape through volcanic eruptions, the atmosphere in a constant