“[Quammen] is our greatest living chronicler of the natural world. . . .There are vivacious descriptions on almost every page."  

– Parul Sehgal, The New York Times

“David Quammen’s diligently researched and deeply considered overview of what’s been going on recently in evolutionary biology is illuminating, wondrous, and gripping. Also scary when it comes to thinking about the evolution of Homo sapiens. This is stunning, first-rate journalism.”

– Barry Lopez, author of Arctic Dreams

“There's no one who writes about complex science better than David Quammen. The Tangled Tree is at once fascinating, illuminating, and totally absorbing.”

– Elizabeth Kolbert, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Sixth Extinction

“Quammen has written a deep and daring intellectual adventure. . . . The Tangled Tree is much more than a report on some cool new scientific facts. It is, rather, a source of wonder.”

– Thomas Levenson, The Boston Globe

“David Quammen proves to be an immensely well-informed guide to a complex story. . . . Indeed he is, in my opinion, the best natural history writer currently working. Mr. Quammen’s books . . . consistently impress with their accuracy, energy and superb, evocative writing."

– David Barash, The Wall Street Journal

"In The Tangled Tree, celebrated science writer David Quammen tells perhaps the grandest tale in biology. . . . He presents the science — and the scientists involved — with patience, candour and flair."

– John Archibald, Nature

"A lively account of how new genetic research is upending the fundamental history of life."

– Andrea Thompson, Scientific American

"In David Quammen’s new page turner, The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life, the author reveals how new molecular techniques have come to revolutionize the way we understand evolutionary processes and how we classify life into coherent groups. In an accessible style that has won him accolades in the past, Quammen does a marvelous job of weaving together the scientific and human story of this revolution. . . . Quammen has once again crafted a delightful read on a complex and important subject."

– Ivor T. Knight, Science

"With humor, clarity, and exciting accounts of breakthroughs and feuds, Quammen traces the painstaking revelation of life’s truly spectacular complexity."

– Booklist (starred review)

"One of the central insights in Charles Darwin's theory of evolution was that life branched like a tree. And one of the revolutionary discoveries of molecular biology over a century later was that the tree of life was, in fact, a far more complex maze of branches. In The Tangled Tree, David Quammen offers the definitive chronicle of this profound development in our understanding of the history of life."

– Carl Zimmer, author of She Has Her Mother's Laugh and Parasite Rex

“A masterful history of a new field of molecular biology . . . . [An] impressive account of perhaps the most unheralded scientific revolution of the 20th century. . . . A consistently engaging collection of vivid portraits of brilliant, driven, quarrelsome scientists in the process of dramatically altering the fundamentals of evolution, illuminated by the author's insightful commentary.”

– Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"[Quammen] explores important questions and makes the process as well as the findings understandable and exciting to lay readers. . . . This book also proves its author's mastery in weaving various strands of a complex story into an intricate, beautiful, and gripping whole."

– Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“[Quammen] writes like the director of a summer blockbuster: blasts of rich detail, quick cuts, not a second wasted.”

– Lois Beckett, The Guardian