Environmental Evolution: Effects of the Origin and Evolution of Life on Planet Earth

Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992. Fine/Fine. Third printing, 1999. Signed on the title page: "For Kanosh [sp?], (1st Edition), MIT Press, We'll get your second edition Sept 8th, 2000. Love, Lynn." The name of the inscribee is difficult to discern with certainty, but perhaps he was a book collector, and this one is uncommon or scarce signed. Laid in is a pink flyer map of the MIT campus with a longer inscription also from Margulis directing the recipient to the book party ("on the way to Cape Cod").  

Lynn Margulis was an influential "rebel" scientist whose theories of the importance of symbiosis in evolution--in particular that cell organelles were originally independent bacteria--were long rejected by male-dominated scientific community before they were accepted as brilliantly insightful. She courted controversy throughout her career and remains one of then most decorated women in science. Among many other awards, Margulis received the National Medal of Science in 1999 from Bill Clinton, and the Linnean Society awarded her its Darwin-Wallace Medal in 2008. Her first marriage was to Carl Sagan.

This book is based on a course that Margulis and her colleagues developed over many years and, via chapters from fifteen scientists, "presents an integrated view of how our planet involved ... it consider geological and atmospheric changes through time." The last two chapters are by James Lovelock on the Gaia hypothesis which he co-developed with Margulis, though she is less commonly acknowledged for her contribution. 

A fine book in a fine jacket. A great addition to any science or evolution collection. Margulis's signature is generally scarce.