The Human Age: The World Shaped by UsDiane Ackerman2014

Award-winning nature 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 orangutans with iPads, create wearable technologies and synthetic species that might one day outsmart us. With her distinctive gift for making scientific discovery intelligible to the layperson, 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.

The Human Age is a surprising, optimistic engagement with the dramatic transformations that have shaped, and continue to alter, our world, our relationship with nature and our prospects for the future.