For the past 450 years, tree-like branching diagrams have been created to show the complex and surprising interrelationships of organisms, both living and fossil, from viruses and bacteria to birds and mammals. This stunning book celebrates the manifest beauty, intrinsic interest, and human ingenuity of these exquisite trees of life. Theodore W. Pietsch has chosen 230 trees of life - from among thousands of possible contenders - dating from the sixteenth century to the present day. His arrangement gives readers a visual sense of the historical development of these diagrams and shows how, in Darwins words, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved. Pietschs brief, accessible prose accompanies the diverse trees to fully reveal the engrossing history of human theories of evolution. Over the centuries, trees of life appeared in a wide variety of forms; some were revered as iconic while others incited intense controversy. The earliest examples were meant to portray the imagined temporal order in which God created life on Earth. More recent scientific trees represent hypothetical histories of life. Never before has the full spectrum of trees of life been brought together in a single volume. Pietsch has spent decades collecting and researching the origin and meaning of these evolutionary trees and presents a visually breathtaking and intellectually brilliant history of the form.
Preface
Introduction
Brackets and Tables, Circles and Maps, 15541778
Early Botanical Networks and Trees, 17661815
The First Evolutionary Tree, 17861820
Diverse and Unusual Trees of the Early Nineteenth Century, 18171834
The Rule of Five, 18191854
Pre-Darwinian Branching Diagrams, 18281858
Evolution and the Trees of Charles Darwin, 18371868
The Trees of Ernst Haeckel, 18661905
Post-Darwinian Nonconformists, 18681896
More Late Nineteenth-Century Trees, 18741897
Trees of the Early Twentieth Century, 19011930
The Trees of Alfred Sherwood Romer, 19331966
Additional Trees of the Mid-Twentieth Century, 19311943
The Trees of William King Gregory, 19381951
Hints of New Approaches, 19541970
Phenograms and Cladograms, 19581966
Early Molecular Trees, 19621987
Notable Trees of the Past Four Decades, 19702010
Primeval Branches and Universal Trees of Life, 19972010
Glossary
Notes
References
Index
""The author has given us a new insight into the varying approaches to evolutionary trees, and an essential source book for the history of evolutionary concepts.""
