End Times, Bryan Walsh
End Times, Bryan Walsh
2 Rating(s)
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End Times
A Brief Guide to the End of the World

Author: Bryan Walsh

Narrator: Bryan Walsh, Corey Carthew

Unabridged: 12 hr 30 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/27/2019

Synopsis

In this history of extinction and existential risk, a Newsweek and Bloomberg popular science and investigative journalist examines our most dangerous mistakes -- and explores how we can protect and future-proof our civilization.
End Times is a compelling work of skilled reportage that peels back the layers of complexity around the unthinkable -- and inevitable -- end of humankind. From asteroids and artificial intelligence to volcanic supereruption to nuclear war, veteran science reporter and TIME editor Bryan Walsh provides a stunning panoramic view of the most catastrophic threats to the human race.
In End Times, Walsh examines threats that emerge from nature and those of our own making: asteroids, supervolcanoes, nuclear war, climate change, disease pandemics, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and extraterrestrial intelligence. Walsh details the true probability of these world-ending catastrophes, the impact on our lives were they to happen, and the best strategies for saving ourselves, all pulled from his rigorous and deeply thoughtful reporting and research.
Walsh goes into the room with the men and women whose job it is to imagine the unimaginable. He includes interviews with those on the front lines of prevention, actively working to head off existential threats in biotechnology labs and government hubs. Guided by Walsh's evocative, page-turning prose, we follow scientific stars like the asteroid hunters at NASA and the disease detectives on the trail of the next killer virus.
Walsh explores the danger of apocalypse in all forms. In the end, it will be the depth of our knowledge, the height of our imagination, and our sheer will to survive that will decide the future.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Tucker on May 24, 2020

Many thanks to Hachette Books for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review The basic message of this book is: We're all gonna die... we just don't know how quite yet. This book was entertaining and fascinating! Highly recommended for those who enjoy science or want to learn about all the wa......more

Goodreads review by Grumpus on September 06, 2019

The grumpus23 (23-word commentary) The demise of humanity. Asteroid? Volcano? Nuclear? Climate change? Disease? Biotechnology? Artificial Intelligence? Aliens? Excessive political editorializing not appreciated. Just the facts, please.......more

Goodreads review by Rob on January 13, 2021

After getting through the year that was 2020, I figured I'd take another ride on the gloom and doom train. Though COVID-19 being scary in its own right, the book explores those scenarios that could all but end life on Earth. End Times is a fascinating read. Bryan Walsh being a former Times journalis......more

Goodreads review by Dan on September 06, 2019

It is one of the fundamental shortcomings and arrogance of the human psyche to always imagine that your own generation is the one likely to see the end times. Never mind the fact that everyone who has ever existed that thought this way was incorrect, we nevertheless see such nihilistic glee both fro......more

Goodreads review by Steve on August 21, 2019

Interesting look at possible apocalypses I enjoyed this book. Despite the subject matter, Bryan Walsh manages to incorporate appropriate humor. Walsh also puts himself into the story, which I generally like. It creates a closer relationship between me and the author. When I started the book, I found......more

Quotes

TIME MAGAZINE, "11 New Books to Read in August!"
ECO WATCH, "Best Environmental Books of August"

"A harrowing chronicle of a range of threats that could bring about human extinction in the not-so-distant future."—The Washington Post

"Instead of freaking out, read End Times. It's a wise and weirdly hopeful journey into civilization's darkest nightmares."—Jeff Goodell, author of The Water Will Come

"It's not easy thinking about all the ways the world can end, let alone writing a whole book about them. But Bryan Walsh has managed the feat and then some, delivering a book that's as analytically astute as it is terrifically written. It takes a special kind of writer to pull this off, and in Bryan Walsh we found him."—Ian Bremmer, New York Times bestselling author of Us Versus Them: The Failure of Globalism

"In End Times, Bryan Walsh has put together the loudest, scariest wake-up call possible. And yet it's not a book without hope: Walsh lays out a challenging series of believable scenarios that can allow human beings to thrive along with our fellow earth-dwellers, in a way that requires only qualities we already have: compassion, intelligence, focus, and determination."—Mark Bittman, New York Times columnist and bestselling author

"Bryan Walsh has reported from the front lines of the 21st century's first pandemic and the backrooms of the war against climate change. He knows science, geopolitics and more. In End Times, he has put together an invaluable guide to living through the worst of times, and offers hope that we might just be able to survive them."—Karl Taro Greenfeld, author of China Syndrome: The True Story of the 21st Century's First Great Epidemic

"We are all going to die, but never before have we been so likely to all do it at the same time. Beyond the alarm and the science, the nuclear showdowns and the climate disasters, rests the bigger question of how we humans contend with the impermanence of our own existence. Bryan Walsh's gripping thought experiment reminds us that the only truly permanent thing we humans can do is go extinct."—Douglas Rushkoff, author of Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now

"It takes a bold reporter and subtle thinker to survey the mortal threats we face and find a way towards hope; yet that is what Bryan Walsh has done in this terrifying, fascinating exploration of existential risk. Cascading catastrophes of the manmade kind are so frightful to consider that we naturally look the other way; but Walsh invites us to reckon with the world we've made, a crucial step towards taking responsibility for saving us from ourselves. The asteroids, the supervolcanoes, the plagues are not of our making; but the nukes, the climate disruption, the weaponized pathogens and challenges of AI are. With a storyteller's art and a scientists tools, Walsh helps us think the unthinkable, takes us to the observatories and laboratories where the future is made. Travel with him to doomsday and back, and nothing looks the same."—Nancy Gibbs, coauthor of New York Times bestseller The Presidents Club: Inside the World's Most Exclusive Fraternity

"Walsh does wonders in unknotting the dizzying agendas fueling many of the existential risks explored in END TIMES."—Scientific Inquirer

"A disturbing, riveting, and ultimately hopeful call to arms."—KIRKUS

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