The Human Age: The World Shaped by Us

'You're now about to become addicted to Diane Ackerman.' Jared Diamond

'Fascinating.' Washington Post

'In this amazingly illuminating book, Diane Ackerman explains our future with her typically intoxicating blend of scholarship, wisdom, grace and humour.' Siddhartha Murkherjee

'A ferociously inspiring, mind-expanding survey of Planet Earth and humanity's central place on it.' Seattle Times

In The Human Age award-winning science writer Diane Ackerman confronts the fact that the human race is now the single dominant force of change on the planet. Humans have 'subdued 75 per cent of the land surface, concocted a wizardry of industrial and medical marvels, strung lights all across the darkness'. We now collect the DNA of vanishing species in a 'frozen ark', equip orang-utans with iPads, create wearable technologies and synthetic species that might one day outsmart us.

Ackerman takes us on an exciting journey to understand this bewildering new reality, introducing us to many of the people and ideas now creating - perhaps saving - the future.