Published at the point when plate tectonics had gone from radical proposition to the organising framework of modern geology, this book was originally published in Japanese as Atarashii Chikyukan and became an influential English-language introduction to the emerging synthesis of plate tectonics.

Uyeda was himself an important geophysicist whose work ranged across plate tectonics, geothermics and paleomagnetism, so this is science written from inside the revolution rather than reconstructed afterward. Maps, diagrams and seismic data are central to the book: the reader can effectively watch a new picture of Earth being assembled from ocean-floor topography, earthquake distribution, magnetism and continental drift. Some instrumentation and details have dated, inevitably, but the conceptual argument remains strikingly lucid. A particularly nice piece of scientific history for anyone interested in how a theory stops looking outrageous and suddenly reorganises an entire field.

W. H. Freeman and Company, 1978. Paperback.Good vintage condition: light rubbing and handling wear to covers, minor creasing and edgewear, light age-toning internally. Binding sound; pages clean.