The Universe Within: The Deep History of the Human Body

A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Year

In The Universe Within, Neil Shubin reveals the connection between the evolution of the cosmos and the evolution of the human body.

Just as the history of the earth is written in the rocks, so too is the universe’s 14-billion-year history written in the human body. Starting at the smallest level, with our very molecular composition, Shubin explores the question of why we are the way we are, tracing the formation of the planets, the moon, and the globe of Earth through the development of the organs, cells, and genes that make up human life.