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Summary: The best book on its subject
Review: I read the chapters pertaining to the Galapagos from this excellent new book by Outside magazine writing star, Quammen. The full book is about island biogeography, the new method of looking at total ecosystems (island in this case does not necessarily mean a body of land surrounded by water), of which the Galapagos is only one of the more representative cases. The first three chapters--"Thirty-Six Persian Throw Rugs," "The Man Who Knew Islands," and "So Huge a Bignes"--center on Quammen's hero, the little known co-discoverer of Natural Selection as a means of evolution, Alfred Russel Wallace. For a book that is about science, Quammen certainly knows how to write about history, and the story of Wallace is well worth the price of this book. In short, Wallace was a self-educated naturalist, who relied on selling the majority of the specimens he collected to wealthy naturalists (like Charles Darwin). However, because he had to collect so much more, he was able to discover the difference between species variation and simple individual differences firsthand. He identified the selection principles enacted by geography during his collecting in Indonesia, and that gave rise to the paper that earned him co-discovery of "natural selection."As Jill says, Quammen is such a good writer that he makes even the heavy slogging through some of the highly technical bit interesting. His Outside magazine style combined with meticulous research and logic building that rivals Stephen Jay Gould would make this the best book on its subject, except for the fact that it is currently the only one (Jill corrects me--it is the only one on its subject written for the lay reader).
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Summary: ?!
Review: All in all not a bad book but... why did Quammen feel he had to include all the darwin bashing in the first chapter? He hints at Darwin being nothing short of a lying cheat who stole the idea of natural selection from Walace out of pride. I would not be so put off by this but he does so with little; strike that, NO evidence other than conjecture. He believes Darwin is lying about a the date he recieved Wallace's manuscript and ASSumes that Walace's account of the day he sent it (written thirty years later) was correct. Skip to MacArthur and Wilson's book. It's not that dense and its is much more impresive.
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Summary: Fascinating account of basic biologic principles
Review: Quammen is well known for his anthology books of articles from "Outside" magazine. As the recipient of a MacArthur award, he spent an incredible amount of time and money researching this book. His breadth of travel is truly breathtaking. The book is quite long but also quite readable. His accounts on island biogeography, extinction and evolution are well presented. One criticism of Quammen has been his extreme politics, but in this book he keeps his political opinions under control, and the result is a more entertaining book. One of the highlights of the book is the controversy between Wallace and Darwin. I remember well the hero-worship of Darwin that existed in ecology while I was working on my Master's degree during the 80's. Quammen's stories do a little to show how important Wallace was and that Darwin might not deserve his deification. Overall, excellent information told well.
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Summary: GREAT...
Review: It's the best book I've ever read. It motivated me to investigate more about the topic. Being born and raised in an island, I always knew they were special, but I didn't know they meant so much! I recommended the book to all my colleagues. The organization is perfect and the narration captivating. I have not been able to stop reading since the moment I opened the first page...
Rating: 
Summary: Island Paradise?
Review: This book concerns an exceptionally interesting and important topic-"island biogeography"-which can teach most of us continental types a thing or two. The nature, origin and distribution of island flora and fauna reveals scientific wonders and beauty that only those who've either studied, or visited themselves, can know and appreciate. If you don't have time to traverse wild remote islands and undertake a detailed study of their biota on your own, to find scientific wonders that can scarcely be imagined, this book provides an easier alternative-a summary of the biological goings-on in these remote places, and the scientific discussions and arguments which surround them. And, like everywhere else, beneath the veneer of their beauty and wonder is another story- ancient, deep and dark. There are discussions on most of the remote islands of the world such as Madagascar, New Zealand, New Guinea, Bali, New Zealand (could have been more detailed -Mr Quamman!), Australia (again, not his most studied area I am afraid to say, being an Australian myself), Maurituis, Aldabra, Hawaii, and so on. The significance and discovery of the Wallace Line is discussed in detail, along with that poorly recognised and forgotten naturalist-Wallace himself. He didn't mention much about 'herbaceous woodinesss', (which is a point I think is rather significant), but there is much about the so-called 'ecological unravelling' as related to habitat fragmentation, area-species relationships, dispersal, tameness, radiation, divergance and convergance, dwarfism, gigantism, founder effects, punctuated equilibrium (accept the broiling for now-it's good for science), and so on. All the evolutionary theory you'd ever want goes on unmasked on remote isolated islands-if only people knew. The Theory of Island Biogeography (1968), much quoted in the text, is an excellent work, which still has much relevance to discussions on evolutionary theory today. Interested readers might like to peruse it, as I have done. One criticism is that the book is at times long winded- I found it easier to skip over some topics I wasn't all that interested in (eg Guam, and others). I suggest readers pick for themselves which areas they want to read about, but don't miss discussions on the dodo, the Tasmanian tiger, birds of paradise, and the diprotodon (need more here Mr Quamman!). Another criticism is that there should be more pictures-biology is a visually profound science! Who knows what a thylacine or a spotted quoll really looks like? When I was at university I had the pleasure of attending a course on island biogeography by a naturalist who had spent many years traversing and cavorting across most of the world's most remote islands. It was the most invigorating course I ever attended. What goes on 'out there', is a window into what goes on here, on bigger land masses, as Darwin, Wallace and others discovered. Not only that, they are beautiful places to boot. Read it and wonder for yourself.
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Summary: You Must Buy This Book and Give Copies to Friends
Review: "The Song of the Dodo" is one of the best natural history books I have ever read. It is seldom that I have ploughed through such a mammoth doorstop of a book and been disappointed that it came to an end so early. Quammen is a wonderful writer, wrestling with some complex subjects here, and the lucky reader ends up with several different books, including one on the history of biology, another on biogeography and biodiversity, yet another on travel and even a eulogy on Tasmanians. As someone with a strong interest in wildlife conservation, I found this book fascinating and alarming. I liked it so much that I bought all of Quammen's other books of essays. They too are very enjoyable, but "Song of the Dodo" is an absolute must-read if you care about the natural world.
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Summary: Extinctions have the chance to stop
Review: David Quammen takes you all around the world starting in the south pacific and ending in the americas. He starts off talking about evolution on the islands of the world to margration and behavior patterns of land mammals. He does not just talk about all the islands that are surrounded by water but "islands" that hold some of the worlds most important plant and aniamal species to help keep biodisivity. He also disusses the indiviual species, group and family. So this book disusses not just biogeography but also basic biology.
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Summary: "A catalogue of quirks and superlatives"
Review: That's what David Quammen says island biogeography is all about. Unintentionally he is also describing his own book. Some of the quirks of nature catalogued here are surf-diving iguanas, pygmy hippos, the Kakapo (world's largest parrot - flightless and nocturnal), and the Komodo dragon with its septic saliva. Biogeography is "the study of the facts and patterns of species distribution" and islands are "natural laboratories of extravagant evolutionary experimentation." The two together then provide us with a scientific methodology for explaining the superlatives of island life. THE SONG OF THE DODO does just that in a very readable and thorougly enjoyable way. Islands have played a primary role in the development of the theory of evolution, so we should not be surprised to find out that pioneers such as Alfred Russell Wallace, Joseph Hooker and, most famously Charles Darwin, were all island hoppers. Mr Quammen takes us on an excursion of islands, retracing some of these journeys of discovery. We visit Indonesia, the Midriff islands in the Gulf of California, the Galapagos islands, Guam, Madagascar and Tasmania. We learn the science of the subject: the "signature features" of island species, their dispersal ability, adaption radiation and size change ratios. One of these patterns is that, on islands, mammals are usually small and reptiles are huge. Case in point of the latter: the 10 foot, 200 lb Komodo dragon. The species/area relationship, and its equation, get a bit of attention. All science has its revolutionary moments and Mr Quammen sees the creation of the equation as island biogeography's moment, leading to a signal event - the publishing of THE THEORY OF ISLAND BIOGEOGRAPHY by Robert MacArthur and Edward O Wilson. The book is part travelogue, biography, history of evolution, and pure popular science writing. The discussion jumps about, not in confusion, but in recognition of the many people and places that have had an influence on the emergence of island biogeography as a field of study. A corollary of this is that island biogeography has a lot to say about events taking place today in many areas of the world. Extinction events of the past: the demise of the Tasmanian tiger, passenger pigeon, and the Dodo, are all explained. So too are current events such as the massive die off of local fauna taking placing on Guam. Ecosystem decay is its euphemistic name and it's happenening all around us. Mr Quammen closes with a discussion of what island biogeography has to offer for conservation management. "Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them" (Ralph Waldo Emerson) Mr Quammen knows of what Emerson speaks; can we too learn to see nature? THE SONG OF THE DODO is just the book to help us do that.
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Summary: Greatest book on Evolution, Extinction, Nature and Science
Review: This is the third Quammen book that I have read, and have reached a conslusion that there cannot be anything better. This is the best work that I hv come across, that takes us through history of biogeography, the causes and factors in evolution and extinctions of various species and subspecies in a very lucid, systematic and thoughtful manner. It is truly amazing how Quammen has covered such a complex subject of evolution and extinction, various theorists, practitioners and woven all of that into a very coherent whole. You may be surprised, as you read this work, to catch yourself staring blankly, thinking, comprehending what he says, and how it all makes so much sense. A MUST for anyone even remotely interested in theory of evolution, nature writing and travel. I can assure you, you'll thank yourself for reading this.
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Summary: A great book about ecology and travel
Review: This is unquestionably the finest book I've read that explains biogeography and population ecology in clear, concise English for the average intelligent person interested in the natural world who lacks a background in science. Quammen deserves highest praise for devoting much time to learn relevant science and then disseminating this knowledge to his readers. Much to my amazement, Quammen fully understands the implications of MacArthur's and Wilson's theory of island biogeography, encompassing such diverse subjects as determining the appropriate size of wildlife refuges to studying cycles of mass extinction in the marine invertebrate fossil record. He gives compelling descriptions of Alfred R. Wallace, Robert H. MacArthur, and E. O. Wilson as scientists and people, pointing out the importance of Wallace's and MacArthur's work towards our understanding of biogeography and indeed, of biological diversity. To his credit, Quammen mentions other signficiant players, such as Ernst Mayr, Daniel Simberloff, Jared Diamond, and of course, Charles Darwin himself. Mixed successfully with biography and scientific research are lyrical passages about the many islands Quammen visited in pursuit of Wallace's footsteps and ongoing important ecological research. Anyone wishing to catch more than a glimpse of great science and how it pertains directly to preserving endangered species should read this magnificient book.
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