Over the last half a billion years there have been five mass extinctions of life on earth Scientists around the world are currently monitoring the sixth predicted to be the most devastating extinction event since the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs Elizabeth Kolbert combines brilliant field reporting the history of ideas & the work of geologists botanists & marine biologists to tell the gripping stories of a dozen species
- including the Panamanian golden frog & the Sumatran rhino
- some already gone others at the point of vanishing The sixth extinction is likely to be mankind's most lasting legacy & Elizabeth Kolbert's book urgently compels us to rethink the fundamental question of what it means to be human