When the Earth Was Green - by Riley Black

Book Synopsis

NOW A USA TODAY BESTSELLER!

Winner, A Friend of Darwin Award, 2024

A gorgeously composed look at the longstanding relationship between prehistoric plants and life on Earth

Fossils plants allow us to touch the lost worlds from billions of years of evolutionary backstory. Each petrified leaf and root shows us that dinosaurs, saber-toothed cats, and even humans would not exist without the evolutionary efforts of their leafy counterparts. It has been the constant growth of plants that have allowed so many of our favorite, fascinating prehistoric creatures to evolve, oxygenating the atmosphere, coaxing animals onto land, and forming the forests that shaped our ancestors' anatomy. It is impossible to understand our history without them. Or, our future.

Using the same scientifically-informed narrative technique that readers loved in the award-winning The Last Days of the Dinosaurs, in When the Earth Was Green, Riley Black brings readers back in time to prehistoric seas, swamps, forests, and savannas where critical moments in plant evolution unfolded. Each chapter stars plants and animals alike, underscoring how the interactions between species have helped shape the world we call home. As the chapters move upwards in time, Black guides readers along the burgeoning trunk of the Tree of Life, stopping to appreciate branches of an evolutionary story that links the world we know with one we can only just perceive now through the silent stone, from ancient roots to the present.

Review Quotes

Praise for When the Earth was Green

"Often evocative...Also enjoyable are the entertaining descriptions of plant and animal interactions similar to those we've witnessed in our own lives."
--Christian Science Monitor

"Black masterfully uses science to breathe life into ancient worlds in which some of our favorite prehistoric animals lived."
--Science News

"Black masterfully transforms 15 fossil sites into vibrant, living landscapes ...an exercise in empathy that left me hopeful about humanity's ability to consider other perspectives, whether those of ancient, exotic organisms or members of our own species."
--Science Magazine

"Black's creative writing style and vivid descriptions, paired with well-chosen scientific facts, transport readers to verdant, sometimes violent scenes from our planet's past."
--Booklist

"BLACK IS A POET OF PREHISTORY, narrating the final moments of a gooey mosquito or the accidental, tree-bound voyage of a monkey with the detail of someone who was there and saw it all, millions of years ago.... This is a book steeped with vegetal beauty, one that unfurls like a flower, blooming."
--Sabrina Imbler, author of How Far the Light Reaches and staff writer at Defector

"BRILLIANT, BRIMMING WITH INSIGHT, and boundlessly entertaining. Black launches a grand tour of deep time, surveying the influence of plant life on animal evolution (and vice versa). It's a 1.2 billion-year fandango, masterfully chronicled."
--Jason Roberts, author of Every Living Thing and A Sense of the World

"AN ESSENTIAL, EXTRAORDINARY STORY...Black shows us how the natural world has always been a splendid, entangled scrum of interactions and transactions."
--Daniel Lewis, author of Twelve Trees, Dibner Senior Curator for the History of Science and Technology, Huntington Library

"WHAT A BEAUTIFUL BOOK! I couldn't put it down. Black has crafted a prose so vivid and precise that it feels more like watching a film. Through Black's "vignettes," the reader is taken on a breathtaking exploration of life's interconnectedness."
--Paco Calvo, author of Planta Sapiens

Praise for The Last Days of the Dinosaurs

Winner 2023 AAAS/Subaru Prize for Excellence in Science Writing

"Black blends the intricacies of science with masterful storytelling for a cracking, enchanting read." --Newsweek

"This is top-drawer science writing." --Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Exquisitely written." --Booklist

About the Author

RILEY BLACK (she/they) has been heralded as "one of our premier gifted young science writers" and is the award-winning author of Skeleton Keys, My Beloved Brontosaurus, Written in Stone, When Dinosaurs Ruled, and The Last Days of the Dinosaurs. A science correspondent for Smithsonian and regular contributor to publications like National Geographic and Slate, Riley is a widely-recognized expert on paleontology. She won the 2024 Friend of Darwin Award from the National Center for Science Education.