This book provides an overview of the history of plate tectonics, including in-context definitions of the key terms. It explains how the forerunners of the theory and how scientists working at the key academic institutions competed and collaborated until the theory coalesced.

Preface: History and Memory -- The Historical Background -- From Continental Drift to Plate Tectonics -- The Early Work: From Paleomagnetism to Sea Floor Spreading -- Stripes on the Sea Floor -- Reversals of Fortune -- The Zebra Pattern -- On Board the Eltanin-19 -- The Birth of Plate Tectonics -- Heat Flow and Seismology -- How Mobile is the Earth? -- Heat Flow Under the Oceans -- Locating Earthquakes and Plate Boundaries -- Earthquake Seismology in the Plate Tectonics Revolution -- The Plate Model -- Plate Tectonics: A Surprising Way to Start a Scientific Career -- When Plates Were Paving Stones -- My Conversion to Plate Tectonics -- From the Oceans to the Continents -- Plate Tectonics and Geology, 1965 to Today -- When the Plate Tectonic Revolution Met Western North America -- The Coming of Plate Tectonics to the Pacific Rim -- From Plate Tectonics to Continental Tectonics An Evolving Perspective of Important Research, from a Graduate Student to an Established Curmudgeon -- Epilogue: Continents Really Do Move -- Plate Tectonics: A Martian View