BOOK REVIEWS--NONFICTION
Symbiotic Planet: a new view of evolution
by Lynn Margulis
©1998 Basic Books, Amherst
I bought this book because I had been seeing a lot in the news about Margulis' Symbiotic Evolution Theory and wanted to find out what it was all about. I knew Margulis mainly as one of the major proponents of Gaia Theory (the theory that the whole earth functions as a unit, a giant ecosystem). Through this book, I found that I had been missing out on a great ecological mind. Margulis was one of the people who brought to the forefront the theory that our mitochondria and plant chloroplasts might be of bacterial symbiont origin, an idea accepted as fact today. In this book, she goes beyond single-cell symbiosis and explains the implications of symbiotic living. Some of us have dismissed the idea of mites living on our dead skin cells as creepy and worth forgetting, but Margulis shows us that this type of symbiosis is fundamental to evolution and that "Gaia is symbiosis as seen from space".
This book is not a technical treatise but contains eight essays ranging from Margulis' own autobiography to the value of scientific classification to the origin of sexual reproduction. It is geared toward the general reader, but interest in the subject is definitely a requirement. You need to have an idea of what RNA is and what mitochondria are in order to get much out of reading this book. Margulis is a wonderful writer, and, while her content may be at times complex, it is never dry.
If you are interested in symbiosis and its effect on evolution, this book may be the most entertaining, accessible and accurate one out there.
-EF
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