Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents vii
3. Preface ix
4. Acknowledgments xiii
5. Chapter 1. Cells, Genes, and Evolution: On the Nature and Workings of Life 1
6. Chapter 2. The Tree of Life: Universal Phylogeny and Its Discontents 18
7. Chapter 3. A World Mostly Made Up of Microbes: Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukarya 35
8. Chapter 4. The Deep Roots of Cellular Life: The Common Ancestry of Living Things 51
9. Chapter 5. The Perplexing Chronicles of Bioenergetics: Making a Living, Now and in the Past 68
10. Chapter 6. Life’s Devices: On the Evolution of Prokaryotic Cells and Their Parts 86
11. Chapter 7. Emergence of the Eukaryotes: The Second Mystery in Cell Evolution 104
12. Chapter 8. Symbionts into Organelles: Mitochondria, Plastids, and Their Kin 126
13. Chapter 9. Reading the Rocks: What We Can Infer from Geology 145
14. Chapter 10. Ultimate Riddle: Origin of Cellular Life 164
15. Chapter 11. The Crooked Paths of Cell Evolution: Cell Evolution Is Special 190
16. Chapter 12. Summing Up: Journey without Maps 215
17. Notes 231
18. Glossary 249
19. References 261
20. Index 289