The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History

Elizabeth Kolbert argues that the Earth is in the midst of a sixth mass extinction, this one caused by humans. She chronicles earlier extinction events and compares them with the rapid, widespread losses of the present, describing particular species that people have wiped out. The book combines accounts of her journeys to remote places with interviews with scientists, researchers and guides, in settings that range from the Panamanian rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef to the Andes and her own back garden. It is written for the general reader.