The history of life is a story of struggle—of wars of varying degrees of bloodiness—of alliances of varying degrees of strangeness, ingenious strategies, tangled plots, and unexpected endings. The result of the confrontation between mammals and dinosaurs was the appearance of us—people—on this planet. Historian and literary critic Yuri Ugolnikov unfolds a gripping account of the emergence and rivalry of living organisms on our planet. Secret enemies and unexpected friends. Disappearances and sudden returns. Cataclysms, extinctions, and the birth of new life.