Foreword	10
	Prologue	12
	Acknowledgements	16
	Contents	18
	Chapter 1: Early Earth Systems	20
	1.1 Archaean and Proterozoic Atmospheres	21
	1.2 Early Biospheres	31
	1.3 Greenhouse States and Glaciations	41
	Chapter 2: Phanerozoic Life and Mass Extinctions of Species	63
	2.1 Acraman Impact and Acritarchs Radiation	79
	2.2 Cambrian and Late Ordovician Mass Extinction	79
	2.3 Late and End-Devonian Mass Extinctions	80
	2.4 Late Permian and Permian-Triassic Mass Extinctions	80
	2.5 End-Triassic Mass Extinction	81
	2.6 Jurassic-Cretaceous Extinction	82
	2.7 K-T (Cretaceous-Tertiary Boundary) Mass Extinction	82
	2.8 Paleocene-Eocene Extinction	85
	2.9 The End-Eocene Freeze	85
	Chapter 3: Cenozoic Biological Evolution (by Colin Groves)	86
	3.1 The Evolution of Mammals	86
	3.2 From Primates to Humans	92
	3.3 From Genetic Evolution to Cultural Evolution	98
	Chapter 4: Fire and the Biosphere	102
	4.1 An Incendiary Biosphere	103
	4.2 The Deep-Time History of Fire	105
	4.3 Fire and Pre-historic Human Evolution	111
	4.4 Neolithic Burning and Early Civilizations	128
	Chapter 5: The Anthropocene	139
	5.1 The Modern Atmosphere	140
	5.2 Neolithic Burning and Early Global Warming	149
	5.3 The Great Carbon Oxidation Event	153
	5.4 The Sixth Mass Extinction of Species	170
	5.5 The Faustian Bargain	174
	5.6 The Post-anthropocene World	188
	Chapter 6: Rare Earth	193
	Chapter 7: Prometheus: An Epilogue	205
	References	212
	About the Book and the Authors	233
	Index	235