Review: The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert

Narrator: Anne Twomey
Genre: Nonfiction, Evoluntionary History
Series: No
Copyright: 2014
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Buy: Amazon Audio or Amazon Book

Summary: from Good Reads
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.

Feelings:
I really enjoyed The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert. At first I wondered if it would be mostly fact or conjecture. The author does venture into conjecture at points, but most of this is based on facts. Through an examination of past extinction events the author is able to make comparisons between current events, the sixth extinction event, and past extinctions. These comparisons show that this extinction is different in one way but has similarities. I was most familiar with the extinction at the end of the cretaceous period, the one that killed the dinosaurs. That extinction was caused by a catastrophic event. Catastrophic events, however, didn't cause all past extinctions nor are they causing the current extinction event.

I learned a lot about earth history from this book. Since I was a in school, there have been changes to the way we think about past extinction events. When you look at an extinction event caused by a catastrophe it is relatively quick, but an event caused by other factors takes a long time. Thus to the human perception, the current extinction event does not appear to be a quick event, thought it is much quicker than the base level of extinctions.

Looking at different animals as they move towards extinction, the author draws conclusions about our world today. I had heard briefly about much of what she wrote, but it was full of new information, and I found it fascinating. I wish textbooks were as interesting as this book. I think if students read books like this, where they saw what the research and conclusions were as well as the facts, they would be more likely to go into science. Books like this add to everyday knowledge while not being overly dry and boring.

I highly recommend this book. The audiobook was also very good, and  would recommend it if you don't have the time to sit down and read this book.