RaveThe New York Review of Books...[a] deeply satisfying and splendidly written survey of the geological, zoological, climatological, and biophilosophical roots of that heavyweight set of coordinates we call Europe ... Flannery’s focus on Europe serves as a handy storytelling device, allowing him to convey a tremendous amount of natural history while maintaining a plot and point of view. Europe is our hero; watch our hero grow. Scenes are vividly, sensorily drawn. You feel the warmth of the ancient Tethys Sea, and you want to scoop up the single-celled Nummulites that crept along the Tethys floor like mobile coins, Methuselah’s spare change, sucking up detritus over a lifespan of a hundred years...It’s startling to realize how teeming and diverse Europe’s megafauna used to be, a kind of Serengeti on the Seine.
