The World We Live In

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An image of an Allosaurus from The World We Live In series
An image of an Allosaurus from The World We Live In series

The World We Live In appeared in the pages of LIFE magazine from December 8, 1952, to December 20, 1954. A science series, it comprised 13 chapters published on an average of every eight months. Written by Lincoln Barnett, The World We Live In spanned a diverse range of topics concerning planet Earth and universe, and employed the talents of countless artists and photographers. These included, among others, cameramen Alfred Eisenstaedt and Fritz Goro, and artists Rudolph Zallinger and Chesley Bonestell.

The issues of The World We Live In were arranged as follows:

  • I. The Earth is Born - the story of primitive Earth as it formed and shaped into the planet we know today.
  • II. The Miracle of the Sea - the ocean, ocean currents, and undersea geography.
  • III. The Face of the Land - surface geology, including mountain building and erosion.
  • IV. The Canopy of the Air - the atmosphere, the weather, and the clouds.
  • V. The Pageant of Life - the story of life, from its single-celled origins to the dinosaurs, passing by trilobites, nautiloids and sea scorpions.
  • VI. The Age of Mammals - the tale of how mammals inherited the earth, starting from small shrew-like creatures and culminating in the great woolly mammoth.
  • VII. The Creatures of the Sea - concerning the wide variety of fish and other sea creatures.
  • VIII. The Coral Reef - the colorful world of the barrier reef.
  • IX. The Land of the Sun - the arid world of the desert.
  • X. The Arctic Barrens - inhabitants of the bitterly cold tundra.
  • XI. The Rain Forest - the lush, verdant Amazon rainforest.
  • XII. The Woods of Home - seasonal temperate woodland.
  • XIII. The Starry Universe - the cosmos, comprising stars, planets, galaxies, and comets.

Each of the chapters sported art and photos, often presented in large gatefolds. The Face of the Land, for example, had a foldout representing a landscape without erosion, followed by the same landscape scarred by erosion. The Land of the Sun featured a double painting: the desert by day, and the desert by night. Rudolph Zallinger's Peabody murals of prehistoric life (chapters V and VI) and Chesley Bonestell's space art (chapters I and XIII) were also prominent features.

After a successful run at LIFE magazine, The World we Live in was re-released in book form in 1955, and abridged in 1956 for younger readers by Jane Werner Watson.

By modern standards, The World we Live In is highly inaccurate. Chapters I through III, V, VI, and XIII are almost entirely obsolete, reflecting the tremendous advances in scientific knowledge that have taken place since the 1950s. Lincoln Barnett's text can also be criticized of being florid, sometimes to a ludicrous degree, and being sometimes overtly biased. For instance, the rationale for mammalian dominance of the Earth from Ch. VI:

“ Indeed, it is probable that the mammals may have survived and succeeded to hegemony of the earth not in spite of but by reason of their very weakness and obscurity, their smallness in a world dominated by giants, their nakedness in a world of armor plate -- in particular, by their fear and sensitivity and awareness in a world of unperceiving, insensate, brainless brutes. ”

There is also excessive personification, which is no longer favored in objective, encyclopedic work. Prehistoric mammals, for instance, are variously described as being "awkward" or "witless". A good example of this form of writing is Barnett's passage on Tyrannosaurus rex in Ch. V:

“ The apogee of development was attained with the creation of Tyrannosaurus Rex, the mightiest and most fearsome flesh-eater that ever terrorized the land. A towering agent of destruction, endowed with gigantic strength and power, Tyrannosaurus spanned 50 feet from nose to tail and carried his terrible head 18 to 20 feet above the ground. His hind legs were superbly muscled, from his thick thighs down to his three-toed, cruelly taloned feet. His main weapon of attack was his murderous mouth which had a gape of incredible size and was armed with rows of six-inch saberlike teeth. ”

Nevertheless, The World We Live In, in its several incarnations, succeeded in bringing the intricacies of science to a wide public. Paleontologist Bob Bakker mentions Zallinger's dinosaurs as the spark that ignited his passion for prehistory; it is ironic that Bakker, with his warm-blooded dinosaurs, would later prove Zallinger's rendition wrong.

The World We Live In was followed by The Epic of Man, another science series, this time focusing on the development and history of human civilization.