Uncover the Microbial Mysteries of Life and Health: The Hidden Half of Nature

Sheryl A. Hammond: I’m a MS Sustainability student and my concentration is soil conservation and water mitigation. This is like a guide to biology of soil and a whole lot more in a brief but all encompassing book. It’s a real gem and I’m so glad I found it. It’s so informative and talks about early scientific ideas and theories/ scientists, and brings all the concepts together in a way anyone can understand. I don’t have a biology degree, and this is where this book really helps me understand in common language. Brilliant!!

United States on Aug 29, 2023

RF: Suppose we shouldn't be too surprised that we have a closer relationship with the things we evolved around (plants) and the things that were there before and throughout (micro organisms) To have it wrapped so accessibilily in a single book is quite an achievement.

United Kingdom on May 06, 2023

Amazon Customer: I just read this book and all my life changed

United Kingdom on Jul 14, 2022

JWood: What a terrific book! I am a long-time gardener and much interested in regenerative agriculture and personal health.
This is a personal evolutionary story of the married authors' (environmental biologist and morphogeologist) experience in discovering the significance of soil and microbial life beginning as newbie gardeners in their new Seattle home as a young couple. This led to quests to understanding the microbiome of plants in natural enriched soil and the surprising discovery of how much better plants grow in good soil.
This led to discoveries of good composting, use of animal manure, and water management.
This led to a detailed study of soil microbes, mycorrhizal fungi and the mutually supportive relationship and with plants.
This, of course, led to the symbiotic relationship of healthy plants, healthy food, healthy humans and animals. The human microbiome is reviewed and I loved the multiple historical stories of scientific discoveries revealing the evolutionary path of our understanding of "The Hidden Half of Nature."
Very helpful glossary, footnotes, and extensive bibliography. I found the book to be not too technical although I had to slow down some to get...

United States on Feb 01, 2020

Ron Immink: Drawdown

Ever since I read “Drawdown”, I am fascinated by nature, agriculture and in particular soil. I am also now of the firm opinion that chemical fertilisers should be banned immediately. It is like giving plants hard drugs, delivers false growth and nutrition, and it kills no only soil but also poisoning our water and us.

The hidden half of nature

Read “The Hidden Half of Nature: The Microbial Roots of Life and Health”. Telling the story that our planet— plants, animals, and people—is completely covered, inside and out, with microorganisms.

Complex microbial communities drive many things we depend upon, from soil fertility to a healthy immune system. And all together, microbes are estimated to make up half the weight of life on Earth. More bacteria live in a handful of rich fertile soil than the number of people who live in Africa, China, and India combined.

Invisible life

An unfathomably vast array of invisible life—bacteria, protists, archaea, and fungi—thrives on us and in us, as do innumerable viruses (which are not considered alive). Their cells outnumber our cells by at least three to one, and many say ten to...

United Kingdom on Sep 25, 2017

PAD: Ce livre est absolument à lire pour qui cherche à comprendre les raisons des problèmes affectant aussi bien notre agriculture que notre santé. Ecrit par deux scientifiques qui ont à cœur d'expliciter les recherches et découvertes récentes sur les microbiomes des plantes et animaux, et leur importance majeure dans notre qualité de vie et de santé. Les auteurs produisent une thèse lumineuse sur ce sujet tout en fournissant à la fois un rappel historique des recherches sur les bactéries et levures (Fungi), les connaissances actuelles, et la réalisation que les organismes des microbiomes sont en relation quasi symbiotiques (plus précisément une relation de coopération mutuelle) avec plantes et animaux. Les microbiomes ont essentiels au fonctionnement correct de ces organismes complexes, mais notre traitement de la santé aussi bien que de l'agriculture perturbe gravement nos aides microscopiques au point de nous mettre en danger. Encore une fois, lumineux !

France on Sep 02, 2017

jclo: I would recommend this book to anyone with a passing interest in gardening, food and how we grow. It is of particular interest to the organic gardener as well. It explains how the authors gradually turned a barren back yard into a healthy garden brimming with wildlife by working in organic matter, combining the perspectives of biologists and the ordinary gardener. The book is profound in explaining the role of bacteria not only in soil health but also in human health. It demonstrates just how important microbes are to the existence of all other life on Earth.

United Kingdom on Aug 15, 2017

Amazon Customer: There is an explosion of books on the subject of Nature and our understanding of its workings. Their similarity of content and lack of completeness is a reflection of our current knowledge. We are just getting to the hard work of discovery and harder work of understanding Nature. The Hidden Half of Nature remains hidden. My modest library on soil science will have to be updated every few years; new findings will demand it. So, what is the contribution of the Montgomery family's newest book? What they produced adds not only to our understanding of soil biology but also argues effectively for the importance of the subject to our very existence. The breadth of the book relates the health of the soil community to the production of plant life that our fore-bearers found complete in the nutrients they needed to nurture and sustain life. The consequences of quest for higher yields at the expense of nutrition benefit is convincing. Anne Bikle's story on the contribution of vegetables and fruits from healthy soil to her successful battle with cancer stand as evidence that we all have to be caretakers of what Nature provides. The narrative is grounded in real experience. I found the...

United States on Jan 29, 2017

Russ Conser: "The Hidden Half of Nature" (HHN) is a profoundly exceptional book. Montgomery’s previous “Dirt: The Erosion of Civilization” was the book Jared Diamond’s “Collapse” could have been. In “Dirt,” Montgomery, an insightful geologist, much more rigorously than Diamond (in my view), documented the ‘long red thread’ of history as being a story of the rise and fall of civilizations first tapping and then depleting their soils. In HHN, he is joined by his wife, Anne Bikle, a biologist, and catalyzed by their own life experience, they connect the dots across seemingly disparate domains of soils and the human gut that I believe have the potential to form the ‘long green thread’ of a prosperous future for everyone except the fertilizer salesman.

Montgomery and Bikle begin with an enjoyable story of how, much to their own surprise, they were able to rapidly turn their dead soil into a living and productive garden by focusing on naturally building soil organic matter using things like mulch and composts. They then use this window and their scientific backgrounds to go on a rigorous journey about how all of this works. We learn that much of this insight was...

United States on Mar 06, 2016