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Summary: An entertaining adventure in science
Review: David Quammen has a unique ability to weave science, adventure and storytelling into fantastic webs that draw you in and hold you tight. The "Song of the Dodo" is no exception. As a biologist he reinvigorates my soul, gives me hope. This should be a required read for freshman level classes in the natural sciences. He encapsulates often complex principles and lays them down in such an entertaining and thoughtful manner that the reader does not even realize that he/she is ( egads! ) learning.
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Summary: An excellent book. Both informative and very entertaining.
Review: The book put forth the travels of Alfred Wallace in a most entertaining mannner and gave a very useful synopsis of theories dealing with island biogeography. The book is both exquisitly detailed, yet very understandable. His tales of extinction show the impact humans have made on the natural world through their direct and indirect actions. The book shows how this impact has caused great losses in biodiversity and how it has brought forth massive amounts of ecoystem decay. The author's own travels and experiences make for a informative and entertaining book that is a great reference material.
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Summary: One of the best five books I have ever read.
Review: My parents loved it and gave me a copy. I loved it and gave a copy to my girlfriend. She loved it and loaned hers to one of our biology professors at Swarthmore College. The professor was hooked. Soon the entire Biology department was hooked. Only a couple of months after I first received a copy, the Biology department invited Mr. Quammen to come speak at Swarthmore.This is the most deeply involving and most enjoyably written books about biology in existence. It will turn any stoic into a lover of nature, and will enthrall the heart of any closet naturalist. Buy it.
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Summary: A well done book
Review: Quammen has done a nice job with this book - it's often a bit wordy and runs on for over 600 pages(!) but the content is there and he's done a nice job of summarizing long-running debates in Biogeography & Reserve Design / Conservation Biology. I'd like to recommend it for optional class reading but it's bloody long and would require suggesting excerpts. Weiner's Beak of the Finch, on the other hand, is ideal for an introductory class. That being said, Dodo is a great read - but it'll take a few transAtlantic flights to finish.
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Summary: Better than any textbook
Review: David Quammen's "Song of the Dodo" is a revelation. I've read dozens of accounts of MacArthur and Wilson's influential Island Biogeography Theory; none stirred me the way this work does. David Quammen's masterpiece should appeal equally to professional ecologists (such as myself) and laypersons. How wonderful to see these pioneers as real people, rather than just dusty works in the library! "Song of the Dodo" will be a valuable reference in my own classroom.
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Summary: A poet in the realm of natural history
Review: Easily the best book I have read in the past five years. I kept on shouting out to family members: "I LOVE this book!" David Quammen is an exquisite writer, a poet really, and he brings his full artist self to the difficult work he attempts. I learned a lot, but more importantly, I felt a lot, and I experienced myself in the presence of true creativity. Thank you Mr. Quammen for a very moving and beautiful read.
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Summary: Wonderful book; entertaining, while thought provoking!
Review: I read this book shortly before writing my dissertation for a doctorate in population genetics, and it actually helped me to organize my thoughts coherently and to put my own work in a historical context. Though Quammen is not a scientist by training, this book is so well researched and written, that I found it both thought provoking and entertaining. If for no other reason, the book is worth buying for its comprehensive reference section! I highly recommend the book to anyone interested in the fields of conservation genetics, biodiversity, extinction, and/or evolutionary biology. Quammen takes the reader on a wild and well constructed journey which spans both the globe and the history of the birth of evolutionary biology. In "Song of the Dodo", Quammen touches on some of the most important theories impacting current natural resource management, as well as some of the philosophies and foundations behind the theories. It didn't hurt that many of my own personal heroes were represented, from Alfred Wallace, to E.O. Wilson. Again I highly recommend the book to anyone and everyone interested in the subject, both laymen and scientists alike.
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Summary: Spectacular in scope, content, and connection to our world
Review: Stumbled across this book while re-kindling my interest in science/nature thru browsing Amazon.com...it is a remarkable journey of thought that connects the power of natural selection to the immense damage of man's quest for domination. Quammen's physical journey around the planet in search of real-life examples of how "islands" impact the evolution of species made this a powerful and thoroughly grounded read. This book now sits atop my "favorite books" list. A suggestion to Mr. Quammen: there seems to be a real connection to island biogeography and the business world...might there be a sequel to this book that explores the possibility that much of our capitalistic, open market economy can be explained (or better yet, predicted) by the theories/laws of nature explored in The Song of the Dodo?
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Summary: How the study of islands has influenced science
Review: On one level, this is a history of the study of the biology of islands. This may sound dull, but it isn't in this case. For one thing, islands have some wonderfully exotic living things, like Komodo dragons, Tasmanian devils and Darwin's finches. For another, just getting to islands to see them has often been an adventure. It still can be, and Quammen has proved this personally in some cases, and, of course, told about it. Yet another reason for the lack of dullness is that islands have been instrumental in the development of some great biological ideas. One of these is the origin of species, starring, in the minds of the public, Charles Darwin and the finches of the Galapagos islands. Quammen shows that Alfred Russel Wallace was about as important as Darwin, and that Darwin wasn't really influenced by the finches. Another great biological idea is extinction, the loss of species, and islands have been where a great deal of this has happened, most notoriously to the Dodo on Mauritius. (The title refers to the fact that we will never know what song, if any, the Dodo sung.) The smaller the island, and the further from the mainland, the more likely is extinction. An isolated woodlot, or a mountain, or a lake, is, in effect, an island--isolated from other areas like itself, and many of these islands, established expressly to preserve some species or group of species, are too small for this to succeed. In fact, most of the types of living things now alive are almost certainly not going to be around in a century or two, for just this reason. The final reasons for the lack of dullness are that Quammen is a great writer, and that he personalizes a great deal of the book, both by his first-person accounts of his own adventures, and by his accounts of the scientists, living and dead, male and female, that have played a role in studying island life. Many novels (he has written a few) are not as gripping. Although exciting and using earthy language, the book is scientifically accurate and well researched and documented. Well worth the time it will take to read it, and you probably won't take as long as you might think, because it will be difficult to stop
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Summary: Dodo is not for Dodos. Quammen is supurb.
Review: Spring 1997. An active volcano on the Caribbean island of Montserrat forced thousands to flee the island. Britain is gripped by the worst drought in two centuries. The koala population in Australia is exploding. Brooklyn's trees are being eaten by the Asian long-horned beetle. If you see no relationship among these events, read David Quammen's superb book, "The Song of the Dodo," and learn about island biogeography, "the study of the facts and patterns of species distribution." When most people look at animals they only see the animals--tigers, tortoises, hornbills, rhinos and so on. They never ask why an animal is the way it is or how it got that way; where it came from and what it is like. Few wonder why animals are where they are and why they're not where they're not. Quammen does, so he takes readers on an intriguing and fascinating tour of island biogeography that relates the history of famous early biologists from Charles Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace and Joseph Hooker to biogeographers of today like Michael Soulé and Edward O. Wilson. Quammen's bibliography is 23 pages of references in very tiny type. Fortunately, despite years spent researching Dodo, Quammen wasn't content to spend all his time reading dry academic papers and obscure texts. Instead he broke out his hiking boots and retraced the steps of some of these explorers. He describes his personal experiences colorfully with analogies, anecdotes and descriptions. If you've been to some of the places he describes, you feel like you ought to go back to see through opened eyes. If you haven't been there, you feel like you ought to go--with Quammen's book in your backpack. Here's his description of Komodo dragons being fed a goat carcass by rangers on Komodo Island in Indonesia. "They snarf and chomp. They gorge. They thrash, they scuffle, they tug and twist. They stir up one helluva ruckus. Within a few seconds they have composed themselves at its axis; elbow to elbow, jaws locked on the meat, tails swinging, they resemble a monstrous nine-pointed starfish. Their round-snouted faces, which looked as gentle and dim as a basset hound's until just a moment ago, have gone smeary with blood. When the goat rips in half, they split into two mobs over the severed halves and the tussling continues. They have each seized a mouthful but the mouthfuls are still held together, barely, by bone and sinew. They wrestle. They lunge for new jaw-grips and clamp down, straining greedily against the tensile limits of the mangled goat.
Much of Dodo is a long tale of complex ecological concepts woven together so that those explored in the beginning are introduced again later. Quammen's observations, historical and personal, are part text, part story. Some are humorous; some are tragic. Plan to read the book at least twice. You may want to start a notebook.
Then, when you finish reading The Song of the Dodo, you might want to take your children to a zoo or natural history museum to show them endangered and threatened animals, birds, reptiles, amphibians insects and plants. You may want to explain that some of these species probably won't be around when their children's children--your grandchildren--are adults. Some species may become extinct in your lifetime. None will ever evolve to fill the void left by extinction. There will be no new rhinos, elephants, grizzlies, gorillas, tigers or anything else.
According to island biogeographers, what islands are good at, whether surrounded by water, farmland or urbanization, is extinction. Parks and preserves just aren't large enough. Nowhere is large enough. You are living among tomorrow's dodos. Some are within a few miles of you.
The Song of the Dodo belongs on every true environmentalist's bookshelf, alongside Aldo Leopold's "Sand County Almanac" and Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring." It should be required reading in any college course that touches on the subject of environment. Quammen, who twice won the National Magazine Award for his writing in Outside magazine, deserves a far more prestigious award for this book.
(This book review first appeared as an article at http://www.suite101.com in the Environment section.)
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