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• Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction (2015)
• Helen Bernstein Book Award Nominee for Excellence in Journalism (2015)
• Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Science and Technology (2014)
• National Book Critics Circle Award Nominee for General Nonfiction (2014)
• PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award Nominee for Shortlist (2015)
• Andrew Carnegie Medal Nominee for Nonfiction (Shortlist) (2015)
• Kirkus Prize Nominee for Nonfiction (Finalist) (2014)
• Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Nonfiction (2014)

Over the last half-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. In prose that is at once frank, entertaining, and deeply informed, New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert tells us why and how human beings have altered life on the planet in a way no species has before. Interweaving research in half a dozen disciplines, descriptions of the fascinating species that have already been lost, and the history of extinction as a concept, Kolbert provides a moving and comprehensive account of the disappearances occurring before our very eyes. She shows that the sixth extinction is likely to be mankind’s most lasting legacy, compelling us to rethink the fundamental question of what it means to be human.

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