Book Reviews

Kolbert, a staff writer at The New Yorker, reports from the front lines of the violent collision between civilization and our planet’s ecosystem: the Andes, the Amazon rain forest, the Great Barrier Reef — and her backyard. In lucid prose, she examines the role of man-made climate change in causing what biologists call the sixth mass extinction — the current spasm of plant and animal loss that threatens to eliminate 20 to 50 percent of all living species on earth within this century.

– Al Gore, The New York Times

Traversing four continents and animating scientists both living and long dead, Kolbert’s narrative can be mesmerizing and awe-inspiring. It’s also a bit terrifying. As evidence of our role in the current mass extinction event mounts, Kolbert illuminates this scientific mystery with a mix of history and field reporting. She weaves together the story of biological calamity, from the concept’s first articulation in revolutionary France to the front lines of numerous extinctions today. Tellingly, these stories traverse land and sea, from remote Oceania to the author’s own backyard.

– Chris Bentley, Chicago Tribune