Overpopulation, depletion of natural resources, hunting of nonhuman species to extinction: paleontologist Niles Eldredge questions the long term survival of humans, given our propensity for living beyond our ecological means. In Dominion he reviews the relation between biological and cultural evolution, showing how the agricultural revolution freed humans from dependence on local ecosystems and allowed us to assert our dominion, as the Christian Bible has it, over the beasts of the field. Unless we quickly change our homocentric ways, we'll irretrievably destroy our own habitat.
Niles Eldredge is a curator in the Department of Invertebrates at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Among his books is Reinventing Darwin: The Great Debate at the High Table of Evolutionary Theory (1995).
"A magnificently clear exposé of our current dilemma, and a forthright recommendation for change."—Kurt Benirschke, University of California, San Diego
190 pp.5.5 x 8.25
9780520208452$28.95|£25.00Paper
May 1997