Centennial; The Origin

A small introduction:
Centennial, a book by James A Michener, invites the reader on a journey through time, from the creation of Earth, all the way to the conquest of the far west United States. The book is historical fiction, and a lot of the descriptions and ideas of the author are very debatable when compared to other sources. However, the point of the book is not to educate the reader in evolution or geology as much as it is to invite us to peer into the development of life and societies.

The book begins when the Earth appears. Michener first talks about how our planet's surface was constantly changing. Mountains were created by crashes of the tectonic plaques, and later destroyed by constant erosion from rivers and rainfall. Pieces of land would remain underwater for millions of years later to surface. This drastic changes made it a very inhabitable place. Later on Michener shows that the constant, drastic change of the Earth's crust subsides, Little by little, life forms evolved and become visible. In a few pages the author takes us from minuscule algae to more intricate life forms, such as rodents and reptiles. After some evolution we reach the story of the giants that roamed the earth before us. More specifically we see the era through the eyes of the Diplodocus and its way of life. She, along with her species dies because the earth was still changing a lot and dinosaurs apparently were not able to adapt to the changes fast enough. But the small prehistoric mammal that lived alongside the Diplodocus adapts and develops. This same mammal's survival, it is believed that lead to our appearance, millions of years of evolution later. One branch of this mammal later became the eohippus (not shown in the image), a pre-horse that emerged in America and later because of unknown reasons migrated to Asia only to return with the French, Englishmen and Spaniards. as the horse leaves from Asia comes the prehistoric buffalo bigger and slower than the current american buffalo, in such great numbers that it darkened the plains as it moved around in herds. It was a very dominant and respected animal in the plains for their thick hides and strong horns were a defence against predators never seen before.

" And so the stage is set. One billion, seven hundred million years of activity, including the building of at least two high ranges and the calling into being of vast seas, have produced a land which is ready to receive living things." (Michener 43). When I first read this I was shocked. I had absolutely no idea it took one  billion, seven hundred million years for the planet to be habitable. And now the human race is stripping the Earth and all the other life forms of clean natural resources. How can humans be so ungrateful? The damage we are causing could take even more time to fix, maybe it is irreversible and for all we know it could be leading our species to its doom.

"Her brain was too small and too undifferentiated to permit reasoning or memory; habit immigrated warned her of danger, and only the instinctive use of her tail protected her from the kind of assault she had just experienced." (Michener 56). This made me think of how amazing animal instinct is. It is like having a 6th sense that tells you what you have to do, for example no one taught the diplodocus how to defend herself, but instinct saved her life. I think it would be amazing if humans had such a strong instinct, maybe we would have learned to live more at peace with other animals or maybe we would know what plants are good for us and what can kill us. I am fascinated by the fact that many animal babies know, since birth what they have to do to survive, while humans have absolutely no idea what to do until we are old enough to lead ourselves by judgement. Could you imagine not remembering anything but be able to rely solely on instinct for survival?


I wonder how Michener allows the reader to see things through his perspective and own interpretation of the research that was put into the ideas of this book. My prediction is that after the buffalo the man will appear and the animal numbers will reduce as the human numbers increase. How  will humans deal with the plains and the animals that live there? Will they wipe them out? Will they live alongside of them?