Earth cover



In Earth, a planetary scientist and a literary humanist explore what happens when we think of the Earth as an object viewable from space. As a “blue marble,” “a blue pale dot,” or, as Chaucer described it, “this litel spot of erthe,” the solitary orb is a challenge to scale and to human self-importance. Beautiful and self-contained, the Earth turns out to be far less knowable than it at first appears: its vast interior an inferno of incandescent and yet solid rock and a reservoir of water vaster than the ocean, a world within the world. Viewing the Earth from space invites a dive into the abyss of scale: how can humans apprehend the distances, the temperatures, and the time scale on which planets are born, evolve, and die?


Table of Contents

1. Prologue: Genesis
2. Orbit
3. Ground (Why Earth?)
4. Scale (Barriers to Understanding)
5. Radiance (Earth's beauty)
6. Gravity (Earth's Pull)
7. Interlude: A Hike Around Piestewa Peak
8. Imagination
List of Illustrations

Product details

Published 09 Mar 2017
Format Ebook (Epub & Mobi)
Edition 1st
Extent 160
ISBN 9781501317927
Imprint Bloomsbury Academic
Illustrations 12 b/w illustrations
Series Object Lessons
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors


Jeffrey Jerome Cohen

Jeffrey Jerone Cohen is Dean of Humanities at Ariz…


Linda T. Elkins-Tanton

Linda T. Elkins-Tanton is Foundation Professor and…

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