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A review by ojtheviking
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert
4.5
Now, so far in life, I've probably read a lot more fiction than non-fiction. And most of the non-fiction I have read are (auto)biographies, usually about musicians. Still, there is a part of me that is very fascinated by this planet's history, and its evolution. In some ways it's the counterpart to my love for science fiction; sci-fi sometimes shows us where what we can evolve into, and non-fiction books about evolution show us where we come from. However, a book like this also warns us about where we are headed.
One might argue that you don't really need a book to tell us what we already know: Humankind is royally fucking up this planet. But Kolbert's book makes everything all the more clear, in such a clear and detailed way, it all becomes more sobering than ever. Over the course of thirteen chapters, she talks about various species and forms of nature around the world - frogs, bats, birds, ocean acidification, plant life, even our not-so-distant cousins, the Neanderthals - and in a near formulaic way manages to sum up their entire lifespan with the conclusion: "Then humans came along."
At the end of the book, she starts off her acknowledgments by saying: "A journalist writing a book about mass extinction needs a lot of help," before she goes on to mention several names of several knowledgeable people; the expertise. I think in some ways that's part of the reason why I find this book so colorfully written. As a journalist, she is much closer to the field of an author than she is to said expertise, so this book feels like the work of an author who has done some massive research, rather than just a non-fiction book containing facts and statistics, if that makes sense.
What I'm getting at with that, is that Kolbert manages to avoid being dry in her writing. She keeps it interesting, which makes it that much more of a pleasure to read, but it also gets the point across even more thoroughly, even with the occasional drip of humor here and there. (Albeit sometimes in the "I laugh because I must not cry" vein, to quote Abraham Lincoln)
But as I said above, it's also very sobering. A thought-provoking and in some ways terrifying book about the true, most savage plague this world has ever encountered. Could it be the wake-up call we need? But even if it is ... is it too late?
One might argue that you don't really need a book to tell us what we already know: Humankind is royally fucking up this planet. But Kolbert's book makes everything all the more clear, in such a clear and detailed way, it all becomes more sobering than ever. Over the course of thirteen chapters, she talks about various species and forms of nature around the world - frogs, bats, birds, ocean acidification, plant life, even our not-so-distant cousins, the Neanderthals - and in a near formulaic way manages to sum up their entire lifespan with the conclusion: "Then humans came along."
At the end of the book, she starts off her acknowledgments by saying: "A journalist writing a book about mass extinction needs a lot of help," before she goes on to mention several names of several knowledgeable people; the expertise. I think in some ways that's part of the reason why I find this book so colorfully written. As a journalist, she is much closer to the field of an author than she is to said expertise, so this book feels like the work of an author who has done some massive research, rather than just a non-fiction book containing facts and statistics, if that makes sense.
What I'm getting at with that, is that Kolbert manages to avoid being dry in her writing. She keeps it interesting, which makes it that much more of a pleasure to read, but it also gets the point across even more thoroughly, even with the occasional drip of humor here and there. (Albeit sometimes in the "I laugh because I must not cry" vein, to quote Abraham Lincoln)
But as I said above, it's also very sobering. A thought-provoking and in some ways terrifying book about the true, most savage plague this world has ever encountered. Could it be the wake-up call we need? But even if it is ... is it too late?