"Simultaneously sobering and exhilarating, Michael Tennesen's wide-ranging survey of disasters highlights both life's fragility and its metamorphosing persistence" (Booklist) and describes what life on earth could look like after the next mass extinction.

A growing number of scientists agree we are headed toward a mass extinction, perhaps in as little as 300 years. Already there have been five mass extinctions in the last 600 million years, including the Cretaceous Extinction, during which an asteroid knocked out the dinosaurs. Though these events were initially destructive, they...