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'Gaia – a hypothesis, a theory, a research
program, a philosophy of nature. For the last half century, the astonishing
work of James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis has cast and recast again a
concept with implications for the atmosphere, Earth history, ecology, and
exobiology. Both of them would have already stood as major figures in
modern science; together, they gave us a concept that remains generative
across fields. In this vital, remarkable volume of their letters, one can
see the origin and development of Gaia, in the complementarity of their
interventions, in their mutual support, in their occasional substantive
disagreement. Bruce Clarke and Sébastien Dutreuil bring us a volume that
will be read for decades across the very wide range of the environmental
sciences.'
Peter Galison, Joseph Pellegrino University
Professor, Harvard University, USA
'Indeed, Lovelock and Margulis found that they
'had something to say' together, a question they ask in 1971 in a letter!
What they had to say changed my life and the lives of many people. Gaia is
a polymorphous concept, hypothesis, planet, boundary object in conflict,
and collaboration among scientists of different disciplines and
persuasions, Earth systems' conceptual foundation, popular passion, and
much more. Gaia matters, and Lovelock and Margulis gave us this generative
formulation of the living Earth as a complex dynamic, self-organizing
system. This collection – with its sober, extensive, enticing scholarly
apparatus – makes the hairs of my arms stand up with pleasure and
excitement. Here the reader will find unadorned letters between two very
different kinds of professional scientist over many years of a complex
personal and intellectual relationship. I am deeply grateful to the
scholarship and passion of Bruce Clarke and Sébastien Dutreuil for this
book.'
Donna Haraway, University of California at Santa
Cruz, author of Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the
Chthulucene
'Writing Gaia offers a fascinating window on
the meeting of two great minds. This insightful set of correspondence and
commentaries provides an unprecedented resource on the history of the Gaia
concept.'
Michael R. Dietrich, University of Pittsburgh,
USA
'Writing Gaia is a revealing and surprisingly
entertaining record of the long intellectual and personal relationship
between two idiosyncratic scientific geniuses and rebels from whose
cerebral symbiosis and complex friendship was born the Gaia hypothesis,
which profoundly changed how we think about Earth and life. The collected
letters of Lovelock and Margulis, along with accompanying essays by some of
their key collaborators, have been skillfully assembled with insightful
commentary by Clarke and Dutreuil. The result is a riveting intellectual
journey, spiced with gossip, intellectual feuds, and occasional moments of
touching intimacy. This book will be required reading for students of
Earth's biosphere and of modern history of science.'
David
Grinspoon, Astrobiologist and author of Earth in Human
Hands
'It is not hyperbole to say that
microbiologist and cell biologist Lynn Margulis and atmospheric chemist
James Lovelock were two giants of twentieth-century science. Margulis's
serial endosymbiosis theory resolved the riddle of the origin of the
eukaryotic cell, forever changing biology. Lovelock developed the Gaia
hypothesis, a radically synthetic vision of life on Earth, in which
Margulis became his chief collaborator. Published here for the first time,
their correspondence provides a fascinating window into the lively
interaction of two extraordinary minds and personalities, while also
showing the evolution of the Gaia idea and its cultural and scientific
reception. This is captivating reading, and I could not put it down!'
James Strick, Professor and Chair of Program in Science,
Technology and Society, Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster,
USA
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