“In his new book, The Origin of Higher Taxa, Kemp . . . provides an insightful and articulate defense of the importance of higher taxa as an evolutionary problem, and expands upon his theory of correlated progression as the responsible mechanism. In the sciences, a phenomenon must be real to be studied (well, it helps anyway, except perhaps in physics), and Kemp’s defense of higher taxa as real ontological entities is based on the idea that extinction separates evolutionary lineages into discrete morphological groups. The clumpy nature of morphologies is indeed one of the major challenges for evolutionary biology.”

Douglas H. Erwin, National Museum of Natural History | Systematic Biology

“I very much enjoyed reading it. The language flows nicely, the structure works well, and the length is, in my view, about right. The question that Kemp grapples with is of the utmost importance. The correlated progression model is clearly articulated and the lack of discord between it and the data is noted—though of course this falls short of confirming the model. Right from the start the book lures the reader in.”

Wallace Arthur, National University of Ireland, Galway | Evolution & Development

“Kemp’s book provides much to think about, ideas and models linking palaeobiology and evo-devo genomics. He does not explore phylogenetic comparative approaches to macroevolution which have the advantage of providing numerical approaches that are available now and that can be tested. His book could be criticized for being too open-ended and hypothetical, but then such deeply considered, thoughtful syntheses can provide the materials to construct numerical models for testing. This is the role of Kemp’s book, and it has the advantage of being written lucidly and in a style any graduate student could follow.”

Michael J. Benton, University of Bristol | Trends in Ecology & Evolution