The Eternal Frontier: An Ecological History of North America and Its Peoples

Rating:
Summary: Evolution of North America
Review: This is an outstanding book. Without doubt it is the best I have ever read on plant, animal, & landform evolution during the Cenozoic Era in general, & North America in particular. However, the only reason I don't rate this book at 5 stars is that it desperately needs illustrations. Tim Flannery, if you read this review, please put out a second edition of this book ASAP, but containing some 50-100 new pages of drawings & color images of all the major plants & animals described, along with maps showing changes to the North American land mass - its immigration routes from Europe, Asia, & South America, glacier advances, etc - for each Epoch of the Tertiary & Quaternary Periods. I also recommend that a geologic time-chart be shown at the beginning of each chapter, highlighting the time period being discussed, since I expect the general reader could not differentiate the Paleocene from the Pleistocene by name alone. Even without these illustrations, this is still a great read, but it would have been a lot more fun without having to keep a dozen other books nearby to look up pictures of each plant, animal, or landform change being discussed.

Rating:
Summary: Evolution of North America
Review: This is an outstanding book. Without doubt it is the best I have ever read on plant, animal, & landform evolution during the Cenozoic Era in general, & North America in particular. However, the only reason I don't rate this book at 5 stars is that it desperately needs illustrations. Tim Flannery, if you read this review, please put out a second edition of this book ASAP, but containing some 50-100 new pages of drawings & color images of all the major plants & animals described, along with maps showing changes to the North American land mass - its immigration routes from Europe, Asia, & South America, glacier advances, etc - for each Epoch of the Tertiary & Quaternary Periods. I also recommend that a geologic time-chart be shown at the beginning of each chapter, highlighting the time period being discussed, since I expect the general reader could not differentiate the Paleocene from the Pleistocene by name alone. Even without these illustrations, this is still a great read, but it would have been a lot more fun without having to keep a dozen other books nearby to look up pictures of each plant, animal, or landform change being discussed.

Rating:
Summary: bold statements
Review: Tim Flannery makes several bold and interesting statements, particularly about the populating of North America. While these make for interesting reading, and he does his best to back them up, Flannery does not adequately address data which do not support his thesis. This is a good read, and serves as an important step in dissemenating archeo and paleo ecology to the popular audience, however it should be read with an empirical grain of salt

Rating:
Summary: He Didn't Forget The People!
Review: Tim Flannery's book The Eternal Frontier is not a perfect book [but was closer to a 5 than a 4 for me], but given the amount of Earth history it covers well and in detail, it's a helluva read. Flannery covers the history of North America from the really bad day that ended the Cretaceous Period up to the present day. Flannery could've included so much more, but then The Eternal Frontier would've been turned into an Earth history textbook, which was not the author's purpose. I do agree with other reviewers that more illustrations would have been nice [maybe if The Eternal Frontier does well, an illustrated edition a' la A Brief history Of Time or Longitude might be forthcoming], but for readers with a little background and a big imagination, the lack of illustrations shouldn't be too much a hindrance to enjoying the book. The thing I liked the most about the book was the seamless incorporation of humans into the story. One of my personal pet peeves is the rigid dichotomy of natural versus synthetic that often shows up in ecological discourse. Certain human activities ARE unique in the history of the Earth [e.g. humans produce chemicals never before seen on Earth], but to consider the ecology of the Earth without humans as an integral part is incorrect and foolish. I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in Earth history or ecology, with a special recommend to those folks involved in any current environmental and ecological debate in North America who want to have a thorough grounding in the history of the place they are arguing over. Whether for good or for ill, the near future of North America and the Earth includes human beings and all thinking humans should know something about how we got to where we are.