The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans and Our Quest to Understand Earth's Past Mass Extinctions

Five times our world has stood on the brink of Armageddon - it's been incinerated, frozen, drained, flooded and smothered by poison gas. We are very lucky to be alive…

Over the past decade has come a revolution in our understanding of global apocalypses. Armed with new technology, scientists have dived into deep time to examine our planet's near-death experiences. The bad news is that they look eerily like our future.

Take a wild ride through the crime scenes, from South Africa to the New York Palisades. Meet the obsessive, off-kilter personalities using cutting-edge forensic tools to piece together the weird and wonderful clues hiding in the fossil record - dragonflies the size of seagulls and fishes with guillotines for mouths. A rip-roaring chronicle and a cautionary tale, The Ends of the World reveals how these five near extinctions gave rise to our modern world - we've never seen so clearly what Armageddon looks like.