Good discipline-crossing study, and one of those books that communicates a deep idea with ease. ( )

Overall, this is an incredible book. I like the way James Lovelock took us through the concept of Gaia and how the world operates as an integrated system.
This fact still eludes many of us, and it is tragic.
The book is also a timely warning to those who wish to play God.
However, there seems to be misplaced optimism in the book, that the world will always repair itself. This, I believe, is a weakness. ( )

Lovelock's seminal work is big on speculation but low on hard data. However, that's usually how sound hypotheses originate and Lovelock's classic is a refreshing dose of "big picture" thinking in a world full of myopic people. ( )

Interesting theory, but could have been presented better.

One of New Scientist magazine's 25 most influential science books. I intend to read (or re-read four) them all and randomly chose this one to start. I think I'll have to come back to it after I've thought a bit on the premise. ( )

The original 'Gaia' book first published in 1979 - fascinating! ( )

This increasingly influential book advocates a view of the Earth as a single, self-regulating organism, with the non-living environment being described as intimately related to and even regulated by the living biosophere. ( )

The Gaia hypothesis, first put forth in the mid-1960s, and published in book form in 1975, has had a radical effect on scientific views of evolution and the environment. Fiercely debated by biologists, chemists, and cyberneticists, it has been the subject of numerous conferences and a BBC special which aired on public TV's "Nova" series. Green Peace and other environmental groups have embraced the theory, and Isaac Asimov incorporated it into two his science fiction novels. Now, James Lovelock provides a new preface to his his seminal work, confronting his critics, and, addressing the current advances in science and technology, demonstrates how his predictions have already begun to be fulfilled.

According to the Gaia hypothesis, the environment does not coincidentally support life on earth; rather the two interact much the way a bird and its nest interact. "The Earth's living matter," writes Lovelock, "air, oceans, and land surface form a complex system which can be seen as a single organism and which has the capacity to keep our planet a fit place for life." This revolutionary book offers the clearest explanation of the interaction of life and the environment.