The Sixth Extinction Dewey Decimal Number: 576.84
Elizabeth Kolbert
The Sixth Extinction has the recorded Dewey Decimal number 576.84 in the Library of Congress entry selected here. The original field is 576.8/4. This is Elizabeth Kolbert's first edition from Henry Holt and Company, published in 2014, with hardcover ISBN 9780805092998. The record centres mass extinctions and biological extinction. That focus distinguishes this book from an undifferentiated category of environmental reading and gives a useful starting point for comparing it with Silent Spring.
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The edition behind this number
An extinction-centred account of environmental change
The catalogue headings include mass extinctions, extinction in biology and environmental disasters. They identify the scale of the central question: the disappearance of forms of life and the processes associated with it. This is different from treating any individual animal death as an extinction, or every local loss as the disappearance of a species everywhere. The record's broad subject terms do not settle a particular scientific claim, but they tell the reader which kind of biological problem the work investigates.
Sources: [1]
The publisher describes a mixture of field reporting and the history of how extinction came to be understood, using particular species and places to carry the account. That combination matters for reading. A scene with researchers provides a close view of work in progress; a historical explanation addresses how an idea or conclusion developed. The two modes can illuminate one another, but they should not be collapsed into a single kind of evidence. Notice when the narrative changes its timescale and method.
Sources: [2]
Track the scale of each claim
When reading an example, label its scale before drawing a broad conclusion. Is it about one animal, a population at one location, the range of a species, or a larger pattern across species? Then identify the observation on which the claim rests. A field report can be vivid and important without automatically establishing every wider inference. This exercise matches the book's subject especially well because extinction connects local observations with claims about much longer periods and larger geographical areas.
Sources: [1]
A second label is time. Distinguish an event reconstructed from evidence of the distant past from a change being monitored during the reporting period. Ask what can be observed directly and what has to be inferred. The reader's task is not to choose one timescale as more real, but to understand how different evidence supports different statements. A book moving between natural history, reporting and past scientific debates rewards this kind of attention to the structure of an argument.
Sources: [1]
The 2014 first edition is not the 2024 anniversary edition
The selected record explicitly says first edition and gives the 2014 Henry Holt publication information. Macmillan separately lists a tenth anniversary paperback, ISBN 9781250887313, released in April 2024 with a new epilogue. That later page is useful for understanding the edition difference and the general description of the work. It does not establish that the added epilogue is present in the hardcover represented here, and it is not the source of this page's Dewey value.
This distinction changes a reading assignment in a concrete way. If a group wants to discuss the author's later reflection, it must obtain an edition containing that material. If it wants to examine the book as first published, a later date should not be allowed to blur which text is under discussion. Keep the original account and subsequent reflection as separate objects of analysis. The anniversary label is informative precisely because it signals an opportunity to compare those perspectives.
Why Silent Spring has a different recorded placement
Silent Spring's selected fortieth anniversary record gives 363.7384 and headings focused on pesticides, environmental effects, toxicology and wildlife. The Sixth Extinction's selected record gives 576.84 and the extinction-centred headings described above. Both are relevant to human effects on the natural world, yet the catalogue descriptions identify different organising subjects. This is a stronger comparison than saying that one book is about science and the other is not. Both engage scientific questions, while the represented treatments differ.
For a paired reading, compare the chain of reasoning rather than only the conclusions. How does each account move from an observation of harm or change to a broader explanation? What role do experiments, field observations, historical records and public decisions play? A pesticide-focused account and an extinction-focused account may offer different kinds of evidence at different scales. The related records help a student choose that comparison deliberately instead of assuming all environmental books ask the same question.
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A forest book is related without being equivalent
The Hidden Life of Trees has 582.16 in its selected English-translation record, with trees and forest ecology as its subject headings. It offers a useful adjacent enquiry when a reader becomes interested in forests after reading Kolbert. The relationship is specific: one record is centred on extinction, the other on trees and forest relationships. The second book should not be treated as a substitute for the first merely because forests can appear in both accounts.
A useful comparison asks whether a passage is describing a continuing relationship within an ecosystem or explaining a process of loss. The same place can support both questions, but the evidence needed may differ. An account of interactions among organisms does not by itself measure an extinction trend, and an account of disappearance may leave many ecological relationships unexplained. Treat the books as routes toward complementary questions, then seek the particular research source needed for a detailed claim.
Sources: [4]
The source field and the physical book
The source preserves 576.8/4, while this page displays 576.84 as the numeric result. The original metadata also distinguishes the valid hardcover ISBN from an electronic identifier in the cancelled or invalid field. These details let a reader compare the answer with the exact record rather than with a publisher page currently displaying another format. The title's subtitle, An Unnatural History, is also worth retaining when searching: it identifies this work more precisely than the phrase sixth extinction by itself.
Sources: [1]
For a research note, record the edition being read next to the passage or chapter under discussion. Then state the scientific or historical question the passage addresses. This small step is especially useful when the 2014 text and the later epilogue are being discussed together. It keeps the date of an observation, the date of an interpretation and the date of the book edition from being treated as the same piece of information.
Sources for this edition guide
The record lists a valid ISBN associated with this edition. That does not independently verify every metadata field, establish a universal number for every version, or give the complete local shelf location. Compare the source with your copy.
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Related edition examples
Compare these separately sourced books on related subjects. Their classifications apply to their own records.
- Silent Spring — 363.7384
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