One of Vox’s Most Important Books of the Decade
New York Times Editors’ Choice 2017
Forbes Top 10 Best Environment, Climate, and Conservation Book of 2017
As new groundbreaking research suggests that climate change played a major role in the most extreme catastrophes in the planet’s history, award-winning science journalist Peter Brannen takes us on a wild ride through the planet’s five mass … award-winning science journalist Peter Brannen takes us on a wild ride through the planet’s five mass extinctions and, in the process, offers us a glimpse of our increasingly dangerous future
Our world has ended five times: it has been broiled, frozen, poison-gassed, smothered, and pelted by asteroids. In The Ends of the World, Peter Brannen dives into deep time, exploring Earth’s past dead ends, and in the process, offers us a glimpse of our possible future.
Many scientists now believe that the climate shifts of the twenty-first century have analogs in these five extinctions. Using the visible clues these devastations have left behind in the fossil record, The Ends of the World takes us inside “scenes of the crime,” from South Africa to the New York Palisades, to tell the story of each extinction. Brannen examines the fossil record—which is rife with creatures like dragonflies the size of sea gulls and guillotine-mouthed fish—and introduces us to the researchers on the front lines who, using the forensic tools of modern science, are piecing together what really happened at the crime scenes of the Earth’s biggest whodunits.
Part road trip, part history, and part cautionary tale, The Ends of the World takes us on a tour of the ways that our planet has clawed itself back from the grave, and casts our future in a completely new light.
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Best book I’ve read on CO2 and extinction. We are currently in our sixth extinction event. People should take notice.
Very interesting book about the 5 times almost everything on earth went extinct! Most people are only familiar with the asteroid or comet that made most of the dinosaurs go extinct!
No, we are not in the middle of another mass extinction…
If we were, I wouldn’t be writing this review — I’d be long gone. This was an incredibly well-researched and infinitely approachable book on the development of Earth and all the life on it to date. Story after story of the horrific ways to go and yet told with warmth and humor. Strong recommendation!
The descriptions of each extinction really bring home the tenuous nature of life on earth. So many starts and redos, make our success a luck of the draw and in no way secure!
For a nonfiction with no human characters, a VERY readable book. It corrected my conceptions of the Dinosaur Killer and informed me of several other mass extinctions I hadn’t known. The idea that the rise of land plants destroyed the world for a time was surprising.
Maybe the best book I’ve read in a decade!
A BRILLIANT REVIEW OF THE EARTH’S EXTINCTION EVENTS AND WHERE WE ARE GOING.
Emotions experienced while listening to this book:
*Rage. We are doing terrible, terrible things to our planet.
*Sorrow. One of the facts (I may not have the numbers exact) that most stood out to me was that in just 10,000 years, what humanity has wrought will affect our planet for 180 million years into the future. Think about that.
*Hope. This book isn’t all doom and gloom. The author takes great pains to point out it’s not too late. (Of course, the book was published two years ago.)
*Insignificance. Honestly, at times, I often felt that the sooner we’re gone, the better off this planet will be. We’re little more than a paragraph, maybe even a sentence, in the vast history of the Earth. (but check out that sorrow fact, eh?)
One of the most fascinating aspects of this book is just how unimportant yet important we really are. It’s not simple conceit that we’ve wreaked more havoc in twenty centuries than tens of thousands of years of more ‘natural’ extinctions. We are, undoubtedly the arbiters of the next.
But we’re also walking well trod ground. We’re not doing anything to the planet that it ain’t weathered before. What makes the catastrophe of our presence so meaningful is that we’re smart enough to understand what we’re doing and to know what it means for future generations of us. Earth will survive. We may not.
Other reasons to read this book: It’s fascinating. The issue of us killing this planet aside, the history of previous apocalypses is really interesting, especially both the science behind them and the process of how modern geologists and other scientists have discovered and interpreted the evidence.
Very educational and eye opening.
A lot of important geological and paleontological information packed into a small volume. I found it very “readable”.
A recounting of the five great extinction events, their causes, and effect on subsequent life forms. It emphasizes that the Earth isn’t hospitable to life. It gives a unique perspective on our current situation.
If you want think in the options for a new world, Geology is boring. The rocks don’t move, they are rock colored basically they are just good for throwing. At least that is what I thought until reading this. Brannen has done an unimaginably good job at bringing all things geology, paleo*, geochemistry and all the other subjects I avoid to life. His ability to weave so many different ideas and science into a coherent book is awesome.
Not only was it a great science read, it was entertaining. You could feel Brannen’s passion and excitement for the subject as well as all of the scientists he interviewed. So many different personalities and ideas all blended to make a good story. The only down side is how dire the warnings are and how solid a case he makes for a really bad situation coming our way. It can be tough to stay positive with all of the evidence.
Climate deniers, don’t bother reading it. If you aren’t convinced by now no amount of rational science will sway you. Anyone else, this is a very entertaining read about past extinctions due to climate or otherwise
This book is about the 5 previous mass extinctions on Earth and the one we’re headed to if things don’t change. Great book…everyone should read it
An excellent read about past extinction events – highly recommend this book.
facinating information about the history and evolution of planet earth and the consequences of and for life
ridiculous
We all need the information this book provides if we want to save the human race from a premature extinction.
This non[fiction book is not only factual but interesting and informative. The author explains that the past includes many max extinctions. He presents the evidence of the events and explains the various causes. Through out the presentation in interesting and the authors descriptions of the types of life that appeared and dominated different periods. He describes how the success of these various populations contributed to their extinction and were succeeded by new life. All of which is important to understand the possible end result of our current climate changes.
Extinction is a scary thing. This book uses current scientific research and interviews with the scientists who study the evidence to explain what happened and how today’s world was formed in clear and interesting prose.
I read over a quarter of the book, because I was interested in the science–the geology and paleontology–but it turned out to be a short thesis swollen to four or five times its length with poor writing, and it’s more diatribe than science. Yes, I agree, humankind is seriously damaging the environment, but the author keeps reiterating the same issues time after time after time. And when he’s not beating that drum, he’s anthropomorphizing whole species of fauna. I finally just copied out the extinction events for research in more sensible sources.