Henry Gee - Four Way Interview

Henry Gee was born in London in 1962. He was educated at the universities of Leeds and Cambridge and has been an editor at the science journal Nature since 1987. As well as his latest title A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth, his books include The Accidental Species: Misunderstandings of Human Evolution; The Science of Middle-earth; Jacob’s Ladder: The History of the Human Genome, and Deep Time: Cladistics, the Revolution in Evolution. He has also written science fiction (The Sigil trilogy) and mystery (By The Sea). Sharp-eyed viewers will recognise him as the bloke sat next to the Rev Richard Coles on the 2019 Christmas series of University Challenge where, with other alumni of the University of Leeds, he won the series championship. He lives in Cromer, Norfolk, England, with his family and numerous pets.

Why science?

Most children go through a phase during which they know the names of at least ten dinosaurs before they are potty trained. I never really grew out of it (the dinosaur phase, that is, not the potty training). I’ve always been interested in the roots of things - how things got to be the way they are - and the infant Gee could be found in museums, usually the most obscure corners. Insatiable curiosity perhaps inevitably meant that this early fondness for museums became combined with journalism and writing, and directed me to Nature, where I have been a writer and editor for nearly 34 years. It’s the best job in the world. And, to be frank, nobody else would have me.

Why this book?

In the back of my mind for years I’ve had the idea to write the story of life on Earth, but the thought didn’t advance any further forward in my mind until a colleague at Nature, David Adam (The Man Who Couldn’t Stop; The Genius Within) suggested I write a book celebrating all the amazing fossil discoveries, news of which has passed across my desk at Nature. After all, as an editor there, and chief bone-botherer, I am in part responsible for the world knowing about such things as feathered dinosaurs; the ‘fishapod’ Tiktaalik, and Homo floresiensis, the incredible hobbit creature from Indonesia.

What’s next?

After each book I swear I’ll never write another book.

What’s exciting you at the moment?

Extinction - how it happens, what it means, and the fate of our own species. If I am going to write about human extinction, I should probably start now.

Comments

The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire - Henry Gee ****

In his last book, Henry Gee impressed with his A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth - this time he zooms in on one very specific aspect of life on Earth - humans - and gives us not just a history, but a prediction of the future - our extinction. The book starts with an entertaining prologue, to an extent bemoaning our obsession with dinosaurs, a story that leads, inexorably towards extinction. This is a fate, Gee points out, that will occur for every species, including our own. We then cover three potential stages of the rise and fall of humanity (the book's title is purposely modelled on Gibbon) - Rise, Fall and Escape. Gee's speciality is palaeontology and in the first section he takes us back to explore as much as we can know from the extremely patchy fossil record of the origins of the human family, the genus Homo and the eventual dominance of Homo sapiens , pushing out any remaining members of other closely related species. As we move onto the Fall section, Gee gives ...

Pagans (SF) - James Alistair Henry *****

There's a fascinating sub-genre of science fiction known as alternate history. The idea is that at some point in the past, history diverged from reality, resulting in a different present. Perhaps the most acclaimed of these books is Kingsley Amis's The Alteration , set in a modern England where there had not been a reformation - but James Alistair Henry arguably does even better by giving us a present where Britain is a third world country, still divided between Celts in the west and Saxons in the East. Neither the Normans nor Christianity have any significant impact. In itself this is a clever idea, but what makes it absolutely excellent is mixing in a police procedural murder mystery, where the investigation is being undertaken by a Celtic DI, Drustan, who has to work in London alongside Aedith, a Saxon reeve of equivalent rank, who also happens to be daughter of the Earl of Mercia. While you could argue about a few historical aspects, it's effectively done and has a plot...

The New Lunar Society - David Mindell *****

David Mindell's take on learning lessons for the present from the eighteenth century Lunar Society could easily have been a dull academic tome, but instead it was a delight to read. Mindell splits the book into a series of short essay-like chapters which includes details of the characters involved in and impact of the Lunar Society, which effectively kick-started the Industrial Revolution, interwoven with an analysis of the decline of industry in modern twentieth and twenty-first century America, plus the potential for taking a Lunar Society approach to revitalise industry for the future. We see how a group of men (they were all men back then) based in the English Midlands (though with a strong Scottish contingent) brought together science, engineering and artisan skills in a way that made the Industrial Revolution and its (eventual) impact on improving the lot of the masses possible. Interlaced with this, Mindell shows us how 'industrial' has become something of a dirty wo...

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