Editorial Review:
David Quammen's book, The Song of the Dodo, is a brilliant, stirring work, breathtaking in its scope, far-reaching in its message -- a crucial book in precarious times, which radically alters the way in which we understand the natural world and our place in that world. It's also a book full of entertainment and wonders. In The Song of the Dodo, we follow Quammen's keen intellect through the ideas, theories, and experiments of prominent naturalists of the last two centuries. We trail after him as he travels the world, tracking the subject of island biogeography, which encompasses nothing less than the study of the origin and extinction of all species. Why is this island idea so important? Because islands are where species most commonly go extinct -- and because, as Quammen points out, we live in an age when all of Earth's landscapes are being chopped into island-like fragments by human activity. Through his eyes, we glimpse the nature of evolution and extinction, and in so doing come to understand the monumental diversity of our planet, and the importance of preserving its wild landscapes, animals, and plants. We also meet some fascinating human characters. By the book's end we are wiser, and more deeply concerned, but Quammen leaves us with a message of excitement and hope.
Cached date: AWS Called=true
You may also be interested in these products:
These categories may also be of interest to you:
Customer Reviews
Average Customer Rating: 
excellent work!  2008-12-26
This is a fascinating look at evolution and biology in the microcosms of islands. There are plenty of fine works out there about evolution, and lots of good books about biodiversity, but here the central question is "what happens if we have a very limited environment? an environment where there may not be any predator species, an environment which may have only limited interactions with other environments?" So, for example, he recounts the investigations into the return of biota to Krakatoa (this has been done before). But he also looks closely at Hawaii, the Galapagos, Komodo, and other islands. Quammen visits most of these places--from inhospitable islands off Baja California to Mauritius and other spots--he wants to see firsthand. Some of the islands are not islands in the usual sense--small pockets of jungle left in Brazil, mountains in Nevada, for example. If you're a small animal that thrives at, say, elevations over 9000 feet, you probably are not going to be able to cross 30 miles of desert to reach another mountain. The tepuis of Venezuela could have been covered here as well.
Perhaps the most interesting parts of the book for me were two tales. The first is about Mauritius and the extinction of the dodo. Humans are of course the culprit, or so we assume. But it turns out that a significant contribution came from the introduction of the crab-eating macaque monkeys to this island in the 1600's. How they got there is a deep mystery--pigs, chickens, goats, etc, are understandable, but the macaques are not very good pet material, to say the least--suspicion falls on the Dutch. The second tale is about the extinction of a number of native birds on Guam--a rapid and measurable decline, with a traceable line of disappearance--from the south to the north. Much like the recent problems with honeybee populations in the US, there were lots of suggestions and finger-pointing--DDT, etc. The culprit turned out to be a poisonous bird-eating tree snake, introduced inadvertently from the Solomon Islands. On Guam the snake had no natural enemies and multiplied--prodigiously. It is estimated that there are 13000 of these snakes (which grow to about 5 feet) per square mile on Guam. That's a mind-boggling 20 per acre. Think of your little house in the US on your quarter-acre lot, and then imagine that on your quarter-acre lot are 5 5-foot long poisonous snakes. These are tree snakes and so climb well. If you have ever (as I have) seen a 5-foot long blacksnake sunning itself on your second-story windowsill and you're cursed with an imagination, think of walking out your front door and having a large poisonous snake drop on you from the overhanging gutter.
Quammen is a great storyteller. By visiting the locations, he can make things really come to life, so to speak. I was never particularly interested in visiting Guam, and I'm not scared of snakes, but now Guam has even less attraction! This book does a really fine job in showing how evolution operates, and it also addresses important environmental issues. A fine work indeed!
Outstanding... 2008-12-25
David Quammen is a damned good writer. This is excellent news for you, the presumptive reader, because this book is looooooong and at times unavoidably recondite.
As a layman's propadeutic for ecology, however, you really can't ask for much more. Quammen knows that SOME jargon is inescapable, but he doesn't deploy it with an airy "Look it up, a-hole!" He gently takes your hand and guides you along through the morass of theoretical ecology...and he has an uncannily accurate sense of just how much academic blibbety-blab one can tolerate, before a narrative volte-face is necessary.
At such junctures, Quammen will insert an anecdote, a joke, a story, something INTERESTING, to ENGAGE you, to get you past the hump, and ready for another ten pages or so of aridity. (A spoonful of sugar...) Truly, he is to be commended...instead of writing a highfalutin, self-aggrandizing work of "scholarship," he's written a book that is both scientifically sound and READABLE.
It's a boon to the subject of ecology and indicates his intellectual security: he doesn't want to flaunt his considerable smarts--he wants you to LEARN SOMETHING. (And you will.) From Darwin to E.O. Wilson, all bases are covered; and though Quammen never attempts to camouflage his own sensibilities, the book is not tendentious (like Guns, Germs, and Steel).
As a "read," the first part is better than later chapters, and there is a definite sense of losing steam. But though the returns start to diminish, the slope always stays positive, and experiences a sharp up-tick at the very end. (If I could get through the section on the Concho water snake, so can you.)
This is simply a superb, edifying book. It's good for you, no matter what you believe, no matter what your perspective.
Substantial and informative 2008-11-19
At 625 text pages, this is a substantial book and well worth the time devoted to reading it. It does not assume a lot of background in biology or ecology in the reader but, interestingly enough, instructs the reader along the way. If you were unversed in the species-area concept, you will learn. If the distance effect, genetic drift, and allopatric speciation were not your strong points, you will learn. In fact this book seems to have quite good potential as a teaching text. It is not only instructive, but entertaining. The author has done quite a job to put together a large volume such as this, one that does such a good job of teaching and of making the learning pleasant. You will learn something and you will enjoy the learning. Along the way, you will learn the sad stories of the species lost by the dozens, hundreds, thousands, because of one. Us. The tragic tale is told in 171 short pieces, each a sort of small essay on some particular animal or island or person. The author, we learn, did not merely sit down at his desk and punch out this text at his typewriter. Rather, he actually travelled to many of the places he described. He visited some of the researchers in their offices or in the field. This author was at many of the places he describes. The result is a book that is one of a few that I would recommend to someone asking for a short list of introductory books on the subject of evolution and ecology.
Hard science in a readable text  2008-03-08
Quammen does an exceptional job of explaining why biogeography should be important to you. He offers a scientific, historical, and personal narrative. As a professional biologist, I like the accuracy in bringing theory to a general audience. For students of biology, if reading MacArthur and Wilson's paper left you a little perplexed, this is the book that will smooth out those rough edges and assure that you "get it". The book probably holds little interest for people who aren't serious science buffs, but even for interested laypersons, there is enough of a narrative running through the text to make it an easy, sensible read. Suffers from flaws of historical perspective, but none so blatant as to make this text unworthy. Highly recommended.
Science Journalism? Yeh, it rules! 2007-09-26
This is the first book I've read by Quammen, an imminently talented journalist who perfectly balances the information and writing style of the book. He follows a chronological progression of island biogeography from Darwin through Jared Diamond (who became hugely famous shortly after the release of this book). Quammen's travelogues are excellent, combining a sympathetic, open perspective that is adventurous and engaged. Late in the book, Quammen describes a climb to the nest of a Mauritius kestrel: "When I'm thirty feet up, a tree branch flicks off my glasses, which drop to the ground. I could go down and retrieve them, sure, that would be sensible, but I'd fall too far behind the cheerful maniacs...
'Do you trust this vine?' I call up to Jones. Gangly but tall, he must weigh two hundred pounds, and from this angle I can appreciate the size of his feet.
'Not greatly.'
We ratchet our way upward, slowly, on the cliff face. It isn't Half Dome but it's more perilous than the average birdwatching stroll. We rise out above the valley. As we move beyond the treetops, I give myself an explicit mental reminder: Fall from here and you don't go home. Finally, Jones and I catch up with Lewis on a narrow rock shelf, like a window ledge ten stories above Lexington Avenue...
I gaze out at the panorama--the forested canyon below us, the deer ranch beyond, and the cane plantation beyond that, all spreading westward for five miles to the crescent of beach and then the great turquoise plane of the Indian Ocean." (562-3)
It's Quammen's excitement and sensitivty that inspire the reader to continue and to care, to take notice of humanity's influence: carving nature into islands, resulting in astonishing rates of extinction and ecosystem decay. But Quammen urges us to cling to hope, not despair, because "besides being fruitless it's far less exciting than hope, however slim." (636)
|
|
