Sixty-five million years ago the dinosaurs were destroyed in a mass extinction that remains unexplained. Out of that devastation, new life developed and the world regained its equilibrium. Until now. Employing radically new perspectives on the science of life, scientists are beginning to uncover signs of a similar event on the horizon: the end of man. In telling the story of the last sixty-five million years, Michael Boulter reveals extraordinary new insights that scientists are only now beginning to understand about the fossil record, the rise and fall of species, and the nature of life. According to Boulter, nature is a self-organizing system in which the whole is more important than its parts. The system is self-correcting, and one of its tools is extinction. If the system is disrupted, it will do what it must to restore balance. This book is a thoroughly researched introduction to the new developments in the science of life and a chilling account of the effects that humans have had on the planet. The world will adapt and survive; humanity most probably will not.

Extinction

Science & Math

Boulter, Michael

Biological Sciences

Columbia University Press

Extinction: Evolution and the End of Man

Five years after returning from his trip around the world, young Charles Darwin became the owner of Down House in Kent, England, where he moved his growing family, far away from the turmoil and distractions of London. He would live there for the rest of his life, and it would become the place where he began work on his masterpiece, On the Origin of Species. For almost twenty years, he used the garden around him as a laboratory. In the orchard, he conducted experiments on pollination. He built a dovecote where breeding new strains of pigeons helped him understand the intricacies of generation. On his daily walk along the sandbank, he observed how plants competed for survival. In solitude he struggled with the ideas of evolution that had haunted him since his voyage, which, in turn, gave him the courage to publish his revolutionary ideas. Bringing Darwin’s garden to the present day, Boulter unfolds a shining portrait of the formation of one of England’s greatest thinkers and his relationship with the place he loved, and shows how his experimentsconducted more than 150 years agoare still revealing new proofs as we continue to search for the origins of life.

Darwin's Garden: Down House and the Origin of Species

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

Counterpoint

On the Origin of Species was built upon the young Charles Darwin’s observations of the natural world when he circumnavigated the globe as a "gentleman naturalist" on the HMS Beagle. But work on his masterpiece did not begin until five years after his return when he moved into Down House with his family in Kent, England, where he would live for the rest of his life. For almost twenty years, the garden at Down House was both an inspiration and a laboratory to Darwin. In the orchard, he conducted experiments on pollination. He built a dovecote where he could breed new strains of pigeons that helped him understand the intricacies of generation. On his daily walk along the sandbank, he observed how plants competed for survival. In solitude, he also struggled with the ideas of evolution that had haunted him since his voyage. Bringing Darwin’s garden to the present day, Boulter unfolds a shining portrait of the formation of one of England’s greatest thinkers and his relationship with the place he loved, and shows how his experimentsconducted more than 150 years agoare still revealing new proofs as we continue to search for the origins of life.

Humor & Entertainment

Bloomsbury Scientists: Science and Art in the Wake of Darwin

The Bloomsbury group is famous for its contributions to literature and art. What's less well-known is that the milieu also included scientists. This book tells the story of the network of scientists living amid the writers and artists in that single square mile of London immediately before and after World War I. Michael Boulter weaves together Bloomsbury's multidisciplinary narratives of genetics, ecology, postimpressionism, and literature, and draws intricate connections through the friendships, grievances, quarrels, and affections of the movement's key players. Bloomsbury Scientists offers a fresh perspective on this history at a time when the complex relationship between science and art continues to be debated.

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

UCL Press

The Bloomsbury group is famous for its contributions to literature and art. What’s less well-known is that the milieu also included scientists. This book tells the story of the network of scientists living amid the writers and artists in that single square mile of London immediately before and after World War I. Michael Boulter weaves together Bloomsbury’s multidisciplinary narratives of genetics, ecology, postimpressionism, and literature, and draws intricate connections through the friendships, grievances, quarrels, and affections of the movement’s key players. Bloomsbury Scientists offers a fresh perspective on this history at a time when the complex relationship between science and art continues to be debated.

History

Europe

Extinction : Evolution and the End of Man

Politics & Social Sciences

Anthropology

Fourth Estate

Art of Utopia: A New Direction in Contemporary Aboriginal Art

Collections, Catalogs & Exhibitions

Craftsman House

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Books by Boulter, Michael