The author is one of the world's leading palaeontologists. He produces work of the highest calibre, writing very clearly for the non-specialist reader, and is never less than thought-provoking. Here he argues that while previous mass extinctions have been caused by unlucky combinations of several different ecological or climatic factors, now there is just a single cause - mankind. `We need a broad perspective on this most portentous of all ecological and evolutionary disasters...Peter Ward's book should be read by all thinking and caring people.' Stephen Jay Gould