Looking at the night sky, you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s all quiet up there in space. But you’d be wrong. Extreme events are forever unfolding: galaxies explode, cosmic debris hurtles through the heavens and our own Milky Way is on a collision course with the giant Andromeda galaxy.

Mayhem moulded the cosmos, shaped life on Earth and at times threatened to end it. With an enduring sense of wonder, through cataclysms great and small, Bob Berman presents a destructive history of our universe.