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On Extinction: How We Became Estranged from Nature
This "hybrid of travelogue and natural science" by an award-winning author is "truly poetic"--now revised with a new introduction and accompanied by the voices of two young activists calling for new kind of relationship to our planet ( The New York Times Book Review ).
Our era is now dubbed the Anthropocene: The Age of Man. Our species has become the primary cause of the extinction of other life and of the dramatic changes we see across the planet. In her twenties, Melanie Challenger began a series of journeys to explore the link between her own estrangement from nature and these striking transformations. From an exploration of an abandoned mine in England to an Antarctic sea voyage to South Georgia's old whaling stations, from a sojourn in South America to a stay among an Inuit community in Canada, she began to uncover the connections between human activity and the living world around us. In time, her travels became a loose meditation on extinction, on how losses affect us and why they matter.
On Extinction is part travelogue, part environmental history. Woven through her journey are the thoughts of the anthropologists, biologists, and philosophers who have come before her. Drawing on their words as well as firsthand witness and ancestral memory, Challenger traces the mindset that led to our destructiveness and proposes a path of redemption rooted in our emotional responses. This sobering yet illuminating book looks beyond natural devastation to examine why and what's next.
Our era is now dubbed the Anthropocene: The Age of Man. Our species has become the primary cause of the extinction of other life and of the dramatic changes we see across the planet. In her twenties, Melanie Challenger began a series of journeys to explore the link between her own estrangement from nature and these striking transformations. From an exploration of an abandoned mine in England to an Antarctic sea voyage to South Georgia's old whaling stations, from a sojourn in South America to a stay among an Inuit community in Canada, she began to uncover the connections between human activity and the living world around us. In time, her travels became a loose meditation on extinction, on how losses affect us and why they matter.
On Extinction is part travelogue, part environmental history. Woven through her journey are the thoughts of the anthropologists, biologists, and philosophers who have come before her. Drawing on their words as well as firsthand witness and ancestral memory, Challenger traces the mindset that led to our destructiveness and proposes a path of redemption rooted in our emotional responses. This sobering yet illuminating book looks beyond natural devastation to examine why and what's next.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2011
18 people are currently reading
548 people want to read
About the author
Melanie Challenger
9 books61 followersMelanie Challenger works as a researcher on the history of humanity and the natural world, and environmental philosophy. She is a member of the UK's Nuffield Council on Bioethics. She received a Darwin Now Award for her research in the Canadian Arctic, and the Arts Council International Fellowship with the British Antarctic Survey for her work on the history of whaling. Her books include On Extinction: How We Became Estranged from Nature and How to Be Animal: A new history of what it means to be human. She hosts the podcast Enter the Psychosphere: A kinds of minds podcast.
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
August 1, 2022
DNF'd. Good info, but not my cup of tea.
July 20, 2012
I was really disappointed by this book. From the synopsis on the cover I was expecting to read about how, as a species, we have separated ourselves from nature, the repercussions of this on the natural world and how we can find our way back to living with nature rather than against. Instead I got to read about how modern civilisation has caused the 'extinction' of more traditional ways of life of local peoples the world over with only little nods to the damage we have done to the planet itself. Granted I expected some insight into how past civilisations managed a more coherent approach to the natural world and how this has been lost but I did not expect that to be the main focus of the book. I'm sure there are many readers that would find this interesting and on one level I did and if this had been described better within the synopsis I may have enjoyed the book more.
On a more positive note Challenger does have a fluid and poetic style of writing that brings the subject matter to life and those occasions where she did detail the impacts on the natural environment resulting from our actions were superb and obviously well researched. I did find the lack of illustration explanations a little irritating as I had to keep turning to the illustration list at the front of the book, which did interrupt the flow a little but this more of a personal thing and may not irritate other readers. Overall not a bad read with the biggest annoyance being the lack of cohesion between the book cover and synopsis and the actual content.
On a more positive note Challenger does have a fluid and poetic style of writing that brings the subject matter to life and those occasions where she did detail the impacts on the natural environment resulting from our actions were superb and obviously well researched. I did find the lack of illustration explanations a little irritating as I had to keep turning to the illustration list at the front of the book, which did interrupt the flow a little but this more of a personal thing and may not irritate other readers. Overall not a bad read with the biggest annoyance being the lack of cohesion between the book cover and synopsis and the actual content.
October 15, 2012
I thought this book was awesome I imagined it would be so much better but it was still good. Hard to review because I read to make myself have a better general knowledge of time passing through the technology and how things change and old ways become something that people just talk about. It was nice to consider that these things may not be passed down but we can certainly read about them in a book. A great read for an ageing environmentalist and someone who cares about the future.
August 9, 2015
What a wonderful, morbidly beautiful work of memoiristic philosophy sprinkled thoroughly with history, earth sciences, etymology, poetics and literary leanings, psychology, and the nature of humanity at its most base levels. Challenger meanders through fen and tundra, gardens and graveyards in sought-after isolation, inhaling the incense of energized melancholy, utilizing a voice that reads like something diaphanous, but is laden with sea-deep thoughts, ruminating on ruination, an entrancing walkabout through layers of what the concept of extinction actually means, from crumbling castles to melting ice caps, of cultures and species vanished from the world, of languages lost and words forgotten, all threaded through with that time-worn mantra of "nothing is permanent except impermanence." sigh
There is a true beauty in ruins, desolation, or other aspects of "the lost past" that cuts deep into the psyche of many of us (tourism flourishes off it; Hollywood glorifies and perpetuates it), and this beauty does so on some serene level of intimacy, like goth kids hanging around tombstones, smoking dope and listening to old cassettes of The Cure, an Anne Rice paperback wedged into a cargo pocket, steel-toed boots clacking to the snare of "Fascination Street." "I began to see that the idea of loss was riveting to the imagination, like shrapnel lodging in the mind as a permanent ache." There are bones and potsherds beneath every footfall, ghosts in every shadow, ancient songs within every breeze, and like it or not, we're all decaying matter waiting to be.
Challenger, to me, is a new-wave transcendentalist, with British gravitas, armed with druidic wisdom, academic respect, simple awe, and humanistic empathy. Her writing style is soothing, taking the reader by the hand and leading us along her journey of discovery, as if sharing secret thoughts to a close friend. I would greatly enjoy a conversation over coffee with her, if ever the Fates allowed it.
There is a true beauty in ruins, desolation, or other aspects of "the lost past" that cuts deep into the psyche of many of us (tourism flourishes off it; Hollywood glorifies and perpetuates it), and this beauty does so on some serene level of intimacy, like goth kids hanging around tombstones, smoking dope and listening to old cassettes of The Cure, an Anne Rice paperback wedged into a cargo pocket, steel-toed boots clacking to the snare of "Fascination Street." "I began to see that the idea of loss was riveting to the imagination, like shrapnel lodging in the mind as a permanent ache." There are bones and potsherds beneath every footfall, ghosts in every shadow, ancient songs within every breeze, and like it or not, we're all decaying matter waiting to be.
Challenger, to me, is a new-wave transcendentalist, with British gravitas, armed with druidic wisdom, academic respect, simple awe, and humanistic empathy. Her writing style is soothing, taking the reader by the hand and leading us along her journey of discovery, as if sharing secret thoughts to a close friend. I would greatly enjoy a conversation over coffee with her, if ever the Fates allowed it.
July 16, 2020
Wasn't sure what I was picking up, but this book came recommended. What I discovered was a fascinating, philosophical look at the human relationship with the planet, with nature, and I think with other people. I enjoyed the journey this book took me on. It has given me much to think about.
I enjoyed the conversation about languages and how deeply interconnected a language is with its associated culture. I have a friend who speaks 7 languages. The most recent language he has learnt is Maori and he commented on how leaning Te Reo in New Zealand is tightly linked to learning about the Maori culture. He said it is impossible to learn one without the other, which is a point of difference from all of the other languages he has learnt. Based on the suggestions in this book, perhaps we should never learn any language in a way that is isolated from its culture.
After everything the author wrote about the mistakes of the past where we have tried to tamper with the natural order because we thought we knew better, I was surprised when, near the end of the book, she suggested that perhaps we should look at genetically engineering ourselves to care more about nature. Doing that would assume that we knew the right thing to do, and history shows that many mistakes have been made when people assumed they knew the right thing. I found it dangerous and arrogant to think that we might now know when centuries of history have proven many other theories wrong.
Thank you Melanie for a book that has challenged my world view and caused me to ask some searching questions. This was a timely read for me on many different fronts.
I enjoyed the conversation about languages and how deeply interconnected a language is with its associated culture. I have a friend who speaks 7 languages. The most recent language he has learnt is Maori and he commented on how leaning Te Reo in New Zealand is tightly linked to learning about the Maori culture. He said it is impossible to learn one without the other, which is a point of difference from all of the other languages he has learnt. Based on the suggestions in this book, perhaps we should never learn any language in a way that is isolated from its culture.
After everything the author wrote about the mistakes of the past where we have tried to tamper with the natural order because we thought we knew better, I was surprised when, near the end of the book, she suggested that perhaps we should look at genetically engineering ourselves to care more about nature. Doing that would assume that we knew the right thing to do, and history shows that many mistakes have been made when people assumed they knew the right thing. I found it dangerous and arrogant to think that we might now know when centuries of history have proven many other theories wrong.
Thank you Melanie for a book that has challenged my world view and caused me to ask some searching questions. This was a timely read for me on many different fronts.
March 25, 2013
If you've ever been frustrated by news about the breakneck pace at which wildlife habitats are being destroyed, you will want to read poet Melanie Challenger's On Extinction, a meditation on humanity's appetite for destruction. Challenger's book resonates nicely with W.G. Sebald's Austerlitz; she devotes a paragraph to him as part of her discussion of Futurism and its unabashed delight in the "beauty" of war. As Challenger interacts with a variety of landscapes and travels to some remote locales, she asks questions about what it means to be human and what our relation to nature is or should be, questions that all of us need to be asking ourselves if wildlife is to survive. Particularly interesting is her discussion of the notion -- prominent in the 19th century -- that humans who are highly adapted to a particular landscape, i.e., "primitive" or indigenous people, are less likely to survive sudden and drastic changes to their environment. Challenger experiences a deep nostalgia for earlier times, when people quite naturally knew things like the names of wildflowers and birds, and existed in more harmony with the landscape. Perhaps the most challenging of all the accomplishments of this book is that she manages to end it on a hopeful note.
April 13, 2015
I didn't love this book at first. Actually, I didn't think I was going to make it through the first chapter. Maybe that's because I wasn't entirely sure what the premise was going to be. Anyway, the first chapter was really boring but I'm glad I continued to read.
Once I started to figure it out and get into the flow, all my doubts vanished. Not only is this book beautifully written but the author has an amazing capability to take you from one thought to another and then through a tangent, all with seamless transitions. I felt like I was inside of her mind.
Once I started to figure it out and get into the flow, all my doubts vanished. Not only is this book beautifully written but the author has an amazing capability to take you from one thought to another and then through a tangent, all with seamless transitions. I felt like I was inside of her mind.
August 16, 2012
Beautifully written book, really draws your thoughts to the impact our behaviour has had on the natural world around us and what we find truly important in life.
April 5, 2018
Like others, this book was not entirely what I was expecting it to be.
Rather than a wholly philosophical look at modern people's estrangement from nature, this book takes both a wider and more narrow view at the destructiveness of humankind over time. Alternatively this book focuses upon the whaling industry and the mining industry, with brief stopovers for the general way the use of oil has impacted the environment and is changing the Inuit people's way of life. I say this view is narrow, for she focuses primarily by way of visiting various places and interviewing the people there; she digs deep into the histories of singular places and how they have been affected rather than focusing upon the whole. This book is deeper for it does delve into the past, and draws connections between lack of place and connection to nature and rising suicide rates in some places.
This is a beautiful book, poetically written and with the true heart of a Romantic at the center. There is beauty to be found in ruins, and confusion to be found in nostalgia. Too often what we long for is a mixture between what we actually lived and what we imagined. Is that a bad thing? A central focus is the idea that perhaps our nostalgia could be used to better interact with the environment and world around us at large. Is there something in our nature that makes us destructive, or is it the motivations that need to change? Why do we lack an interest in the world around us?
Ultimately few resolutions are reached. Instead, there is simply a message and hope that we will better engage with our own locations and places in the world. Learn the land, learn the animals, and learn to live with it and in it in a different, and non-destructive and greedy way. Instead, take only what you need. Or at least that's what I got out of it.
I'd be curious to hear what others made of it all.
Rather than a wholly philosophical look at modern people's estrangement from nature, this book takes both a wider and more narrow view at the destructiveness of humankind over time. Alternatively this book focuses upon the whaling industry and the mining industry, with brief stopovers for the general way the use of oil has impacted the environment and is changing the Inuit people's way of life. I say this view is narrow, for she focuses primarily by way of visiting various places and interviewing the people there; she digs deep into the histories of singular places and how they have been affected rather than focusing upon the whole. This book is deeper for it does delve into the past, and draws connections between lack of place and connection to nature and rising suicide rates in some places.
This is a beautiful book, poetically written and with the true heart of a Romantic at the center. There is beauty to be found in ruins, and confusion to be found in nostalgia. Too often what we long for is a mixture between what we actually lived and what we imagined. Is that a bad thing? A central focus is the idea that perhaps our nostalgia could be used to better interact with the environment and world around us at large. Is there something in our nature that makes us destructive, or is it the motivations that need to change? Why do we lack an interest in the world around us?
Ultimately few resolutions are reached. Instead, there is simply a message and hope that we will better engage with our own locations and places in the world. Learn the land, learn the animals, and learn to live with it and in it in a different, and non-destructive and greedy way. Instead, take only what you need. Or at least that's what I got out of it.
I'd be curious to hear what others made of it all.
June 11, 2021
I was expecting a scientific/historical/philosophical examination of, well, what the subtitle states. This really wasn't. It's essentially an educated young woman's musings on extinction informed by her journeys in her native England, the arctic, and the antarctic. The thoughts she shares touch on the extinction or species, of technologies, of languages, beliefs, and cultures. She also ponders "nature," both human and otherwise, but there is no overarching hypothesis, argument, or conclusion as far as I could tell. The prose often shades toward purple, which tends to cloud its meaning, so a lack of full understanding in this case may be the fault of the reader rather than the writer. (My appreciation of poetry pretty much begins and ends with Dr. Seuss.) To me, it seemed she was making the simple observation that people constantly strive to improve their lives, which brings about changes to their environment and to their way of life, and isn't it a shame that some things are lost when other things are gained?
August 14, 2023
Or as Woody Allen's character once said, "I have always been at two with Nature." This traces the many ways we got to where we are. The way toward repairing our relationship with Nature (our greater Self) is to spread the example to start right now right wherever we are and find and pay attention to anything near to us that is non human and non technological, to know it fully, to help protect it because it is in some way protecting us. This reconnection will help what ails us as people, and communities. We lost touch with Nature and that has led to our losing touch with one another and the village and that has led to us losing our own true and meaningful selves. There is a whole lot going extinct. Always has been. But we are doing it purposefully and to ourselves.
January 1, 2017
This book read like a graduate thesis mashed with a Victorian novel in a bad way. The author switches between describing her feelings and surroundings in detail to theoretical and scientific ideas she has learned about. I found it hard to follow and finish.
I also found the book to be repetitive. Roughly half is about the Arctic and Antarctic while the other half is about England. Some more variety in examples would have helped to move the book along. I did learn an awful lot about whale hunting, though.
There were some interesting ideas here but they were buried in wordy prose.
I also found the book to be repetitive. Roughly half is about the Arctic and Antarctic while the other half is about England. Some more variety in examples would have helped to move the book along. I did learn an awful lot about whale hunting, though.
There were some interesting ideas here but they were buried in wordy prose.
March 7, 2018
It’s a basic book, neither delving too deeply into the extinctions of plants and animals, nor the extinctions of cultures and languages. It’s largely an exploration of a sense that it’s time to start paying attention to nature and human beings, how the two intertwine and the consequences of forward progress without looking into existing relationships. I enjoyed the book. The author employs some nice prose and there were passages that brought up interesting points to consider. I’ll admit, I was often left wanting more. But, overall, it was okay.
June 14, 2018
Not what I expected but very good. Not only about extinction, but also our nostalgia for things that have disappeared from the Earth. It is very poetic and very researched. I feel guilty now too, because like the author I do not yet have a favorite wildflower. I am thinking the monument plant (Frasera speciosa), which flowers only once in its lifespan of 20-80 years, often coordinated with other monunment plants. Life's unnoticed miracles...
June 27, 2019
Beautifully written book, but I was hoping for more.
Because the way we've been estranged from nature -- and how we can learn to reconnect -- is something that's been top of mind for me for a long time, I was hoping for more insight into this aspect.
Good historical account of the whaling industry and insight into the commodifying state of mind that so separates us. How do we regain a more meaningful relationship with the natural world?
Because the way we've been estranged from nature -- and how we can learn to reconnect -- is something that's been top of mind for me for a long time, I was hoping for more insight into this aspect.
Good historical account of the whaling industry and insight into the commodifying state of mind that so separates us. How do we regain a more meaningful relationship with the natural world?
April 29, 2021
This book seems to have divided people, probably because it doesn't quite do what you expect it to do. It's a personal journey around landscapes of extinctions of various kinds, from species to peoples to industries, and on the way, questions are asked about history and how we've ended up in the current mess. I found when I let myself go with it and began to follow the different links, a very interesting perspective on the anthropocene emerges.
July 25, 2021
Occasionally interesting and written with some flair, this just doesn't do what it says on the box: there's no explanation of HOW we became estranged from nature and Challenger at times seems to lose track of what she's supposed to be focusing on (extinction). A few chapters examine whaling and therefore cross over with the vastly superior Fathoms: The World in the Whale by Rebecca Giggs. Read that one instead.
June 9, 2021
Empirically informed analysis of how we are in the midst of a 6th mass extinction. You can read about the facts and read off the figures and diagrams, but I find this personal account much more convincing.
February 3, 2024
Meh. I've had this book on my shelves for a while and finally got around to it. There were some interesting tidbits but lots that was whimsical in a way that I didn't connect with. Also quite a bit of unexamined privilege.
November 17, 2017
Not what I expected, but good. It is more reflective and poetic.
October 7, 2020
I wanted to like this, but unfortunately it ended up being more of a sentimental autobiographical tapestry with some historic and scientific facts woven through, than vice versa.
June 8, 2013
Wow. How could such a great potential topic come out so lame? Not a single actual rumination of species-wide extinction and the insignificance of humanity. More of a hippy travel writing book saved only from being tossed aside in frustration for the uniqueness of many of the locations which the chapters are written about. To really engage with such a topic seriously check out John N Gray or hell, Lovecraft's stories are better at dealing with these issues, albeit indirectly.
May 27, 2015
I found myself rushing home to get back to my Kindle to read more of this wonderful book that meanders through different parts of the world, including Cornwall, Antartica, and Northern Canada. Challenger's voice is authoritative yet totally approachable. I felt like she was talking to me ... but then she had also done her research. Highly recommend to those who enjoy an even-handed approach to global warming and its consequences.
July 28, 2013
If you are looking for charts, graphs, tables and a lot of data, this is not the book you want. Nonetheless, poet Melanie Challenger beautifullly links her musings on missing wildlife and lost human ways of living. I liked the way she connected observations in ways that fall outside strictly scientific procedure. A thoughtful and worthwhile read.
July 8, 2013
I liked the idea of this book but ultimately I could not get through it. The first half or so was very good, but the whaling stories went on too long and in too much detail. This is an unusual complaint for me, as I often complain of too little detail.
September 5, 2013
Miss Challenger does a fantastic job writing about herself and her feelings about the nature around her, so if you have any interested in getting to know her that might be a great book for you. However, if you are interested in actual scientific writing I would stay away from it.
December 8, 2014
Modern day explorer for the end of an era. Poetic capture of the environmental disaster of our times, climate change.
March 1, 2016
I'm sure it's a great book for those interested in Challenger's random thoughts. It's just a pity it's not about the extinction nor the enstrangement form Nature.
Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews