Elizabeth Kolbert, a long-time writer for The New Yorker, writes The Sixth Extinction from alternating first- and third-person points of view. Many of her writings have focused on the impact of global warming and climate change, and this nonfiction text is written in that vein.

In the book, Kolbert travels to far-flung areas of the globe to present evidence of the human role in extinctions in the past, present, and quite possibly, the future. Her knowledge, and an earnest expression of both the hope and despair produced by human actions, are exhibited clearly throughout the text.

A naturalist and teacher at the Natural Museum of History in Paris, Jean Leopold Nicolas Frederic Cuvier made a name for himself by studying ancient mastodon bones from America and arguing that this lost species, like many others, went extinct because of catastrophic events. By examining fossils, rock formations, and ancient texts, Cuvier further developed his cataclysmic hypothesis. Eventually, the catastrophe that Cuvier said had occurred was proven to have taken place, in the form of the spread of human beings around the world.