A beautiful hardcover book from Smithsonian Publishing in which gifted science writer Deborah Cramer makes clear that the ocean has been earth's lifeline for more than three and a half billion years.

But as Cramer reveals in this sweeping look at earth's biography, the vital partnership between earth and the life it nourishes has recently been disrupted. Today, a single terrestrial species, man, has begun to alter the health of the sea itself. The mark of humans on the seas is now everywhere—from the fertile waters of continental shelves to the icy reaches of the poles.