- All's Well That Ends Well
- Antony and Cleopatra
- As You Like It
- The Comedy of Errors
- Coriolanus
- Cymbeline
- Hamlet
- Henry IV, Part 1
- Henry IV, Part 2
- Henry V
- Henry VI, Part 1
- Henry VI, Part 2
- Henry VI, Part 3
- Henry VIII
- Julius Caesar
- King John
- King Lear
- Love's Labor's Lost
- A Lover's Complaint
- Macbeth
- Measure for Measure
- The Merchant of Venice
- The Merry Wives of Windsor
- A Midsummer Night's Dream
- Much Ado About Nothing
- Othello
- Pericles
- The Rape of Lucrece
- Richard II
- Richard III
- Romeo and Juliet
- Shakespeare's Sonnets
- The Taming of the Shrew
- The Tempest
- Timon of Athens
- Titus Andronicus
- Troilus and Cressida
- Twelfth Night
- The Two Gentlemen of Verona
- Venus and Adonis
- The Winter's Tale
Throughout her book, Kolbert has painted a pessimistic picture of human nature. Humans are destructive and, even worse, oblivious to their own destruction. They burn fossil fuels, indirectly wiping out entire species from the oceans, and don’t even realize what they’re doing. At the same time, Kolbert’s view of human nature isn’t entirely negative. As she points out here, humans are capable of incredible acts of altruism and kindness. Indeed, humans are perhaps the only life forms on the planet who devote their time and energy to preserving other species.
In the end, Kolbert offers a nuanced, ambiguous view of…