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).

"Dominion is a personal essay on the human career written by a well-established paleontologist. . . . Eldredge's book attempts to deflect some of our inner-directed consciousness outward, to take dominion not over the earth but over ourselves. He believes the only way to that goal is through population control, and he is probably right."—Meredith F. Small, Scientific American

"The human population of the earth is a standing affront to the rules of ecology. No reasonable scientific prediction would admit there to be so many of us. . . . Dominion is a short book, written for the nonspecialist audience, about this big paradox. He asks both how it came about, and what our understanding of it tells us (or suggests to us) about the human future."—Mark Ridley, New York Times Book Review

"A magnificently clear exposé of our current dilemma, and a forthright recommendation for change."—Kurt Benirschke, University of California, San Diego