Uhmmmm, I don't quite know how to approach this book. In the preface Lovelock makes it plain that this is not a technical book and readers interested in a more technical approach should look elsewhere; as Lovelock puts it 'To my scientist friends who wanted it to lead somewhere else I would say: if you wanted to go there, you should not have started from here.'
Still this book is worthy of close examination, first published in 1979 it proposes that life modifies the physical and chemical conditions of the Earth (temperature, salinity of the oceans, etc) to keep them fit and comfortable for life itself. Lovelock nicely illustrates his ideas and gives a clear picture of the intricate pattern of loops and feedbacks that control the Earth's environment. However, I would criticise him for an occasional 'slight-of-hand' type argument. Lovelock is also interesting in his views on the Green movement, growing it seems to him from the anti-nuclear weapons movement it naturally gravitated towards a new target, big science-based business.
Ultimately however I found this book unsatisfactory for the following reas
on. Since 1979 Lovelock's ideas have changed considerably. In preparing this new edition for publication in 2000 he added some corrections and a bit of new material, but I think fundamentally the text was unchanged. This is shown most plainly in the glossary entry for 'Gaia Hypothesis': This begins with a description of the Gaia hypotheses as I had understood it from the preceding 143 pages and then goes on to say that this is the original Gaia hypnoses and is now known to be wrong; in its place Lovelock briefly sketches in a new version, the Gaia theory. The conclusion I suppose is if you want to read about Gaia try one of Lovelock's latter books, I only wish that had been written on the dust jacket.
Oxford University Press, 148 pages