Advance Praise for Liaisons of Life
"The complexity of life has forced on biologists a less detached approach than is usual in science. Their feeling for the organism conflicts with their dispassionate reduction of its DNA sequence. Tom Wakeford's fine book movingly captures the consequence of this tension on scientists and politicians in his history of the concept of symbiosis. All scientists should read it."--James Lovelock, author of the Gaia Hypothesis
"A thoroughly readable look at the history of one of biological science's greatest ideas . . . Symbiosis is clearly an idea whose time has come, and Tom Wakeford helps us understand why."--Roger Knutson, author of Fearsome Fauna
"Thanks to Tom Wakeford for his tales of life as a long adventure in partnership, and for his stories of people who pioneered that idea. With a true naturalist's eye and a store of engaging anecdotes, he shows how the concept of symbiosis has moved from the fringe of science to its center."--Arno Karlen, author of Biography of a Germ and Man and Microbes
"A cogent introduction to the possibility that nature is not red in tooth and claw, but green of thumb as it cultivates interdependence instead of just competition."--Wayne Biddle, author of A Field Guide to Germs and A Field Guide to the Invisible
"Tom Wakeford's book is a remarkable and charmingly written excursion across the field of symbiotic interactions among plants, animals, and fungi. He makes the case that an understanding of symbiosis is essential to an understanding of evolution, and succeeds."--Christopher Wills, author of Children of Prometheus

A fascinating exploration of symbiosis at the microscopic level and its radical extension of Darwinism
Microbes have long been considered dangerous and disgusting-in short, "scum." But by forming mutually beneficial relationships with nearly every creature, be it alga with animals or zooplankton with zebrafish, microbes have in fact been innovative players in the evolutionary process. Now biologist and award-winning science writer Tom Wakeford shows us this extraordinary process at work. He takes us to such far-flung locales as underwater volcanoes, African termite mounds, the belly of a cow and even the gaps between our teeth, and there introduces us to a microscopic world at turns bizarre, seductive, and frightening, but ever responsible for advancing life in our macroscopic world. In doing so he also justifies the courage and vision of a series of scientists-from a young Beatrix Potter to Lynn Margulis-who were persecuted for believing evolution is as much a matter of interdependence and cooperation as it is great too-little-told tales of evolutionary science.