The definitive history of plate tectonics, told by the scientists who developed and assembled evidence for the theory. Can anyone today imagine the earth without its puzzle-piece construction of plate tectonics? The very term, "plate tectonics," coined only thirty-five years ago, is now part of the vernacular, part of everyone's understanding of the way the earth works. The theory, research, data collection, and analysis that came together in 1967 to constitute plate tectonics is one of the great scientific breakthroughs of the 20th century. Scholarly books have been written about tectonics, but none by the key scientists-players themselves. In Plate Tectonics , editor Naomi Oreskes has assembled those scientists who played key roles in developing the theory to tell - for the first time, and in their own words - the stories of their involvement in the extraordinary evolution of the theory.