The Sixth Extinction (Unabridged)
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4.3 • 139 Ratings
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- $19.99
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE
From the author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe, a powerful and important work about the future of the world, blending intellectual and natural history and field reporting into a compelling account of the mass extinction unfolding before our eyes.
Over the last half a billion years, there have been five mass extinctions, when the diversity of life on earth suddenly and dramatically contracted. Scientists around the world are currently monitoring the sixth extinction, predicted to be the most devastating extinction event since the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. This time around, the cataclysm is us.
The Sixth Extinction draws on the work of scores of researchers in half a dozen disciplines–geologists who study deep ocean cores, botanists who follow the tree line as it climbs up the Andes, and marine biologists who dive off the Great Barrier Reef. Elizabeth Kolbert, two-time winner of the National Magazine Award and New Yorker writer, accompanies many of these researchers into the field, and introduces you to a dozen species–some already gone, others facing extinction–that are being affected by the sixth extinction.
Through these stories, Kolbert provides a moving account of the disappearances occurring all around us and traces the evolution of extinction as concept, from its first articulation by Georges Cuvier in revolutionary Paris up through the present day. The sixth extinction is likely to be mankind's most lasting legacy; as Kolbert observes, it compels us to rethink the fundamental question of what it means to be human.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Are we headed for another major extinction? Pulitzer Prize–winning New Yorker journalist Elizabeth Kolbert fears we are—and it’s all our fault. Through lively storytelling, interdisciplinary field trips to exotic places, and layers upon layers of thorough research, Kolbert takes us through previous extinction level events, while showing us the disturbing results of roughly 200 years of industrialization on our planet’s plants and animals. Tony Award–nominated actress Anne Twomey delivers Kolbert’s snappy writing in an engagingly earnest tone, maneuvering us through the stormy, acidic seas toward calmer, cleaner wisdom, in the hopes that we can change our fate for future generations.
Customer Reviews
Excellent science based view
As a science teacher, I was happily surprised to read a book with so much scientific data. Each chapter focus on a different species extinction. Most extinctions described has an anthropogenic (human) cause. I would recommend for people interested in science and people interested in the environment.
Creationist
It’s interesting about some of the science, but on the other hand, there’s some other far-fetched stuff at the end.
There’s debate about how old the Earth is
A must read for everyone
The narrator Anne Twomey does an excellent job. She makes the book come to life. It is a very good listen, holds you like a good novel. So very fascinating.
Everyone should listen to this book. I first borrowed it from the library but have now purchased it to reread again and again.
It is a harsh reality that we are the species that is causing the extinction.
Read this book, buy this book.