The Giant Leap

The Giant Leap

by Caleb Scharf
Publication Date: 21/10/2025

Share This eBook:

  $37.99

A leading astrobiologist argues that space travel is an evolutionary event at least as important as life’s first journey from sea to land


The story of life has always been one of great transitions, of crossing new frontiers. The dawn of life itself is one; so, too, is the first time two cells stuck together rather than drifting apart. And perhaps most dramatic were the moves from the sea to land, land to air. Each transition has witnessed wild storms of innovation, opportunity, and hazard. It might seem that there are no more realms for life to venture. But there is one: space.


In The Giant Leap, astrobiologist Caleb Scharf argues that our journey into space isn’t simply a giant leap for humankind—it’s life’s next great transition, an evolution of evolution itself. Humans and our technology are catalysts for an interplanetary transformation, marking a disruption in the story of life as fundamental as life’s movement from sea to land, and land to sky.


Inspired by Darwin’s account of his journey on the Beagle, and packed with stories from the past, present, and future of space travel, The Giant Leap thrills at both life’s creativity and the marvels of technology that have propelled us into the cosmos. And it offers an awesome glimpse of the grander vistas that wait in the great beyond.

ISBN:
9781541604186
9781541604186
Category:
Evolution
Publication Date:
21-10-2025
Language:
English
Publisher:
Basic Books
Caleb Scharf

Caleb Scharf is the award-winning author of The Copernicus Complex and Gravity's Engines, and the director of the Columbia Astrobiology Centre.

He has written for The New Yorker and Nature, among other publications. He lives in New York City with his wife and two daughters.

Available for download after 21/10/2025

You can find this item in:

Show more Show less

Reviews

Be the first to review The Giant Leap.