Includes bibliographical references and index.

Don't Skip This -- Missing the Global in the Local and the Local in the Global -- The Idea of Prehistory Makes It Hard to Think about Global Change -- The Beginning of History: The Land (and This Book and You and Me) Is Made of Matter -- The Land Is the Functioning Skin of the Planet -- The Land Lives, Suspended in a Network of Unholy Complication -- Emergent Land Turning Green: The Coevolution of the Continents and Atmospheric Oxygen -- The Land Covers Itself with Plants and Animals (and the Human Animal Comes Down from the Trees) -- The Land Covers Itself with Humans -- Humans Cover Themselves with the Land -- The History Hidden by Paradise: A Case Study.