The research for historian David Sepkoski’s 2020 book, Catastrophic Thinking: Extinction and the Value of Diversity from Darwin to the Anthropocene (hereafter Catastrophic Thinking) goes back at least a decade (309). However, this carefully written work could not have been released at a more apposite moment in global history. As the world is veritably awash in crises, ranging from the pandemic, to economic depression, climate change, social unrest, and political upheavals, Sepkoski’s book asks us to reckon with how society conceives of the consequences of our collective actions, but also our imagination for the future. To achieve this, the book proceeds chronologically using the organizational principle of extinction imaginaries to navigate the convoluted terrain of intellectual and popular debate about extinction and biodiversity during the past 200 years.

O’Neill, Brian F. 2021. Review of David Sepkoski’s Catastrophic Thinking: Extinction and the Value of Diversity from Darwin to the Anthropocene. In New Global Studies. Online first at DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/ngs-2021-0008