The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE
ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST

A major book about the future of the world, blending intellectual and natural history and field reporting into a powerful 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.

In The Sixth Extinction, two-time winner of the National Magazine Award and New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert draws on the work of scores of researchers in half a dozen disciplines, accompanying many of them into the field: geologists who study deep ocean cores, botanists who follow the tree line as it climbs up the Andes, marine biologists who dive off the Great Barrier Reef. She introduces us to a dozen species, some already gone, others facing extinction, including the Panamian golden frog, staghorn coral, the great auk, and the Sumatran rhino.

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.

Author: Elizabeth Kolbert
Publisher: Henry Holt & Company
Published: 02/11/2014
Pages: 336
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.25lbs
Size: 9.55h x 6.38w x 1.10d
ISBN: 9780805092998


Award: ALA Notable Books - Winner
Award: Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence - Finalist
Award: L.A. Times Book Prize - Winner
Award: Kirkus Prize - Finalist
Award: Helen Bernstein Book Award - Finalist
Award: National Book Critics Circle Award - Finalist
Award: Pulitzer Prize - Winner
Award: Massachusetts Book Award (MassBook) - Winner


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 11/25/2013
Booklist 12/01/2013 pg. 19
Library Journal 02/15/2014 pg. 126
Discover 03/01/2014 pg. 65
New York Times Book Review 02/16/2014 pg. 1
Kirkus Reviews 02/15/2014
Shelf Awareness 02/21/2014
Entertainment Weekly 02/28/2014 pg. 74
New York Times Book Review 02/23/2014 pg. 22
New York Review of Books 03/20/2014 pg. 29
Entertainment Weekly 03/07/2014 pg. 71
Publishers Weekly Best Books 11/03/2014 pg. 36
NY Times Notable Bks of Year 12/07/2014 pg. 28
LJ Top 10 Book 12/01/2014 pg. 27
LJ Best Books of Year 12/01/2014 pg. 34
Kirkus Best Nonfiction 12/01/2014 pg. 31
Choice 01/01/2015 pg. 838
New York Times Book Review 12/14/2014 pg. 10
Christian Century 01/21/2015 pg. 38
BookPage 02/01/2014

About the Author
Elizabeth Kolbert is a staff writer at The New Yorker. She is the author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change. She lives in Williamstown, Massachusetts, with her husband and children.