Synopses & Reviews
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 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.
Review
"A vivid, fascinating story about all the past and future lives of our planet. Peter Brannen has the knack of opening up new worlds under our feet." Michael Pye, author of The Edge of the World
Review
"A simultaneously enlightening and cautionary tale of the deep history of our planet and the possible future..... Entertaining and informative on the geological record and the researchers who study it.... a useful addition to the popular literature on climate change." Kirkus
Review
"Revealing... Effectively link[s] past and present, [while] wind[ing] down with projections for the future and a warning against inaction in the face of climate change." Publishers Weekly
Review
"If readers have time for only one book on the subject, this wonderfully written, well-balanced, and intricately researched (though not too dense) selection is the one to choose." Library Journal (Starred Review)
Synopsis
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 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.
About the Author
Peter Brannen is an award-winning science journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic, Wired, Washington Post, Slate, Boston Globe, Aeon, and others. A graduate of Boston College, he was a 2015 journalist-in-residence at the Duke University National Evolutionary Synthesis Center and a 2011 Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Ocean Science Journalism Fellow. This is his first book.
Peter Brannen on PowellsBooks.Blog
There have been five major mass extinctions in the history of complex life. They were really bad. Horribly, unthinkably bad. This might sound obvious, but it’s difficult to conceive just how bad the five worst catastrophes in earth’s history actually were. Despite the headlines, and despite the tremendous damage humanity has inflicted on the biosphere...
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