Life Story

'Profound and timely' Tony Juniper

'A tour de force' Lorna Gibb

A panoramic history of life, revealing the forces that have shaped our world – and could shape it again

Life evolved in two phases. First as organic life – from single cells to the astonishing diversity of the natural world. Then as human culture – from hunter-gatherers to cities, empires and civilisations.

In this sweeping and original work, Jonathan Loh reveals a radical idea: culture as a form of life. Unfolding across deep time – from the earliest organisms to the rise of Homo sapiens, from foragers to farmers, from the Bronze Age to the Industrial Revolution – Life Story uncovers the hidden patterns linking genetics and language, organisms and states, ecosystems and economies, mass extinctions and civilisational collapse. One species has come to dominate the Earth. Yet as machine intelligence gathers pace, Loh asks whether human supremacy is only a phase in life’s longer story.

What can we learn from our past?
And what might this mean for our future?