Abstract

Here is the problem. If the message is important, is it fair to write negatively concerning the format, let alone the messenger?In 1994 Peter Douglas Ward published The End of Evolution: On Mass Extinctions and the Preservation of Biodiversity. The paper trade edition carried the subtitle “A Journey in Search of Clues to the Third Mass Extinction Facing Planet Earth.”There are changes between The End of Evolution and Rivers in Time, but one has to search diligently to find them and they are trivial. The photographs are larger but no more informative. One new chapter is mainly about collecting under difficult conditions. The final short chapter, more or less new, weakens the alleged reason for writing this book. The prinicpal change is in the title. To quote another's review of Ward's earlier book: “Though his thesis is clear—sometimes overwhelmingly so—interesting, if tangential, digressions occasionally mar the story's flow.” Some readers may characterize the style as appropriate for an “Indiana Jones” script. If the local library does not own The End of Evolution, probably it should purchase this work for the general reader