Creatures Near Divine

An authoritative, lyrical history of loss on Earth, of extinction—from an ice age 443 million years ago to the present day.

The story of evolution on Earth is long and magnificent. So is the story of extinction.

In Creatures Near Divine, environmental historian Daniel Lewis excavates the deep roots of our species’ fear of—and fascination with—extinction. Drawing on archival research and interviews with leading researchers, Lewis explores how extinctions have shaped our environment and ultimately human history. Extinctions have not always been viewed as preventable tragedies—before the early modern era, they were considered natural in the course of history.

Lewis takes us through the five mass extinctions that have defined life on Earth, mapped alongside the history of science itself: the conservation movement was born in the late nineteenth century, and now in the twenty-first century new research in the field of “resurrection biology” aims to revive lost species. A bold and magisterial investigation, Creatures Near Divine reframes everything we thought we knew about life on Earth and what lies ahead for humankind.