Rating: 
Summary: tying it all together--a synthesis of biology courses
Review: This book is an amazing read. With clear, concise and lyrical prose Colin Tudge accomplishes what I've always sought in my education--a well rounded synthesis of biological theories and principles explained in context of the diversity of life. This book gave me the perspectives and deeper insights about systematics needed to become a good naturalist and ecologist--perspective that weren't explicitly taught in my college biology courses. The phylogenetic tree illustrations are a brilliant, accessible reference. In today's world where molecular biology and reductionistic perspectives dominate our understanding of life, Tudge successfully brings back the importance to understanding and appreciating the whole organism.
Rating:
Summary: A magnificent reference text for biologists
Review: This book pulls together an enormous amount of information and makes it digestible to the average undergraduate - no small feat. It's scope is magnificent, as is its treatment of fundamental concepts of evolution. Although I think there are some problems with the sections on extinct birds and cetaceans (based on new discoveries), Tudge does as well as anybody could in defining outgroups and sister taxa, always erring on the conservative side. I think the most novel and thought-provoking portion of the text concerns the number of kingdoms we might now wish to recognize - I discuss Tudge's reasoning for this with my biology undergraduates and it never fails to make an impression. A splendid accomplishment, and I'm waiting eagerly for a second edition, and a third, and so on. Well done Dr. Tudge, and sincere thanks.
Rating: 
Summary: A broad coverage is the key to its success
Review: This work excels at providing the reader with information about a diverse group of organisms. The line drawings and the schematic "evolutionary tree" diagrams are very helpful. For the price, this book is a steal. However, I must mention that it is obvious that the author has severe gaps in his knowledge (which is to be expected, since he is covering everything). For example, Passeriformes include over 1/2 of all birds and he basically just mentions the word. Instead he describes some of the other orders. With his coverage of insects he is also not complete. Several orders are completely left off that any insect lover would recognize (i.e. lice are missing). The reason why this is not good is that it appears that he is giving a complete coverage of a group down to a certain level and including all of the representative groups of that level. He should be consistent (if covering families then include all families within a group, or all orders not 27 orders and leave off several obvious ones).
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