Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction is a subgenre of science fiction in which the Earth's civilization is collapsing or has collapsed. The apocalypse event may be climatic, such as runaway climate change; astronomical, an impact event; destructive, nuclear holocaust or resource depletion; medical, a pandemic, whether natural or human-caused; end time, such as the Last Judgment, Second Coming or Ragnarök; or any other scenario in which the outcome is apocalyptic, such as a zombie apocalypse, AI takeover, technological singularity, dysgenics or alien invasion.
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies is a 1997 transdisciplinary nonfiction book by the American author Jared Diamond. The book attempts to explain why Eurasian and North African civilizations have survived and conquered others, while arguing against the idea that Eurasian hegemony is due to any form of Eurasian intellectual, moral, or inherent genetic superiority. Diamond argues that the gaps in power and technology between human societies originate primarily in environmental differences, which are amplified by various positive feedback loops. When cultural or genetic differences have favored Eurasians, he asserts that these advantages occurred because of the influence of geography on societies and cultures and were not inherent in the Eurasian genomes.
The Long Now Foundation, established in 1996, is an American non-profit organization based in San Francisco that seeks to start and promote a long-term cultural institution. It aims to provide a counterpoint to what it views as today's "faster/cheaper" mindset and to promote "slower/better" thinking. The Long Now Foundation hopes to "creatively foster responsibility" in the framework of the next 10,000 years. In a manner somewhat similar to the Holocene calendar, the foundation uses 5-digit dates to address the Year 10,000 problem. The organization's logo is X, a capital X with an overline, a representation of 10,000 in Roman numerals.
Paul Ralph Ehrlich is an American biologist known for his predictions and warnings about the consequences of population growth, including famine and resource depletion. Ehrlich is the Bing Professor Emeritus of Population Studies of the Department of Biology of Stanford University.
Nicholson Baker is an American novelist and essayist. His fiction generally de-emphasizes narrative in favor of careful description and characterization. His early novels such as The Mezzanine and Room Temperature were distinguished by their minute inspection of his characters' and narrators' stream of consciousness. Out of a total of ten novels, three are erotica: Vox, The Fermata and House of Holes.
The Abolition of Man is a 1943 book by C. S. Lewis. Subtitled "Reflections on education with special reference to the teaching of English in the upper forms of schools", it uses a contemporary text about poetry as a starting point for a defense of objective value and natural law. Lewis goes on to warn readers about the consequences of doing away with ideas of objective value. It defends "man's power over nature" as something worth pursuing but criticizes the use of it to debunk values, the value of science itself being among them. The title of the book then, is taken to mean that moral relativism threatens the idea of humanity itself. The book was first delivered as a series of three evening lectures at King's College, Newcastle, part of the University of Durham, as the Riddell Memorial Lectures on 24–26 February 1943.
William Irwin Thompson was an American social philosopher, cultural critic, and poet. He received the Oslo International Poetry Festival Award in 1986. He described his writing and speaking style as "mind-jazz on ancient texts". He was the founder of the Lindisfarne Association, which proposed the study and realization of a new planetary culture.
Lester Russel Brown is an American environmental analyst, founder of the Worldwatch Institute, and founder and former president of the Earth Policy Institute, a nonprofit research organization based in Washington, D.C. BBC Radio commentator Peter Day referred to him as "one of the great pioneer environmentalists."
George Johnson is an American journalist and science writer.
Knowledge is a detailed familiarity with, or understanding of, a person, thing, or situation.
A global catastrophic risk or a doomsday scenario is a hypothetical event that could damage human well-being on a global scale, even endangering or destroying modern civilization. An event that could cause human extinction or permanently and drastically curtail humanity's existence or potential is known as an "existential risk".
An Edible History of Humanity is a book written by Tom Standage that encompasses the history of the world from prehistory to modern day times through the tracing of foods and agricultural techniques used by man.
Yuval Noah Harari is an Israeli medievalist, military historian, public intellectual, and popular science writer. He currently serves as professor in the Department of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His first bestseller, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind(2011), is based on his lectures to an undergraduate world history class. Among his other works, are other bestsellers like Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (2016), 21 Lessons for the 21st Century (2018), and Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI (2024). His published work examines themes of free will, consciousness, intelligence, happiness, and suffering.
Wave: Life and Memories after the Tsunami is a memoir by the Sri Lankan educator Sonali Deraniyagala about the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. It was first published in 2013 by Alfred A. Knopf. The book recounts the story of Deraniyagala's life before the tsunami struck the coast, and how it changed dramatically after the disaster, primarily focusing on life without her five most important family members, including her parents, her husband, and her two sons. It is written in the first-person narrative style and opens on December 26, 2004. The book received several awards and positive reviews from critics.
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History is a 2014 nonfiction book written by Elizabeth Kolbert and published by Henry Holt and Company. The book argues that the Earth is in the midst of a modern, man-made, sixth extinction. In the book, Kolbert chronicles previous mass extinction events, and compares them to the accelerated, widespread extinctions during our present time. She also describes specific species extinguished by humans, as well as the ecologies surrounding prehistoric and near-present extinction events. The author received the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for the book in 2015.
The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature is a popular science book written by the McGill University neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin, and first published by Dutton Penguin in the U.S. and Canada in 2008, and updated and released in paperback by Plume in 2009, and translated into six languages. Levitin’s second New York Times bestseller, following the publication of This Is Your Brain on Music, received praise from a wide variety of readers including Sir George Martin, Sting, Elizabeth Gilbert, and Adam Gopnik. The Los Angeles Times called it "masterful". The New York Times wrote: "A lively, ambitious new book whose combined elements can induce feelings of enlightenment and euphoria. Will leave you awestruck." The Times wrote "Levitin is such an enthusiastic anthropologist, such an exuberant song and dance man, such a natural-born associative thinker, that you gotta love the guy." It was named one of the best books of 2008 by the Boston Herald and by Seed Magazine.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind is a book by Yuval Noah Harari, based on a series of lectures he taught at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. It was first published in Hebrew in Israel in 2011, and in English in 2014. The book focuses on Homo sapiens, and surveys the history of humankind, starting from the Stone Age and going up to the 21st century. The account is situated within a framework that intersects the natural sciences with the social sciences.
Lewis Ryan Dartnell is a British astrobiologist, presenter, and professor of science communication at the University of Westminster. His works of popular science include The Knowledge: How to Rebuild our World from Scratch and Origins, which looks at how geology has impacted human history.
Book of Knowledge is a topical children's encyclopedia first published in 1912.
The Zoologist's Guide to the Galaxy. What Animals on Earth Reveal about Aliens – and Ourselves is a 2020 popular science book by the Cambridge University zoologist Arik Kershenbaum. It discusses the possible nature of life on other planets, based on the study of animal life on Earth.
