Extinction: Bad Genes or Bad Luck?
David Raup 1991 W.W. Norton and Company

This book deals with the issue of "survival of the fittest" and mass extinctions. Are the survivors of extinctions necessarily better adapted than the species that were exterminated? It includes a survey of the history of life, a discussion of randomness, and an examination of the circumstances known about the five major mass extinctions.

ISBN 0-393-30927-4
find it in: Worldcat (for local availability) and Amazon.com [check Library of Congress]

This resource is referenced here:
Resource Type: Scientific Resources:Overview/Reference Work, BookKeywords: extinction, Earth history