The book tells about the past, present and future of perhaps the most mysterious creatures on Earth. We learn from fossils how the earliest, early whales looked, and how these land-dwelling animals switched to an aquatic lifestyle millions of years ago. The search for fossil whale bones and work on the anatomical description of existing species took the author to various parts of the planet: from the Atacama Desert in Chile, where the world's largest cemetery of ancient whales was discovered - Cerro Ballena, to a whaling station in Iceland, from the Arctic to Antarctic seas .Whales still remain mysterious creatures. We know little about them, too little, but the geological scale of their lives and the parameters of their bodies fascinate us. In addition, they speak to each other in incomprehensible languages. They, like us, have a culture. Eminent whale expert Nick Pyenson answers questions about where whales came from, how they live today, and what will happen to them in the age of humans - a new era that some scientists call the Anthropocene.