A Natural History of Australia

Rating:
Summary: Like an extra long research paper by a C student
Review: A few years ago I spent nearly a year travelling around Australia, and returned curious about some of the strange things I had seen there. I asked for this book for my birthday because of the good reviews it had received on Amazon.com. However, when I finally got it none of my biggest questions were addressed. Previously, most of my knowledge of these subjects came from reading the little natural history bits in my Lonely Planet Guide or by watching certain T.V. documentaries. I wanted a source of information that went beyond these and revealed some of the underlying explanations and science involved. I wanted to know the origins of some of the famous landforms such as the Bungle Bungle or Ayer's Rock. I'd also wanted to know what shaped the dry interior. I heard it was the bottom of a sea at one time. What the book does talk about in the geology section is the split up of Gondwana in multi-paged depth, and gives no more special attention to Australia than other continents. None of my questions were addressed, and the facts listed were not interesting to me. In the section on animals the author gave no real overview on their origins, and just listed a number of the most popular species and gave a little characterization of each. In many parts of the book I found that my tourist's range of knowledge actually included some things the author didn't mention, such as how aboriginal burning shaped the ecology. Also, it often seemed that the author did not thoroughly know his subject matter, but was just quoting from one of his sources. Eventually I began to loose confidence that this book was written by an expert on the natural history of Australia and more by a publication-hopeful writer (this is my opinion based on his bio)who compiled an incomplete list of facts from numerous sources, some of which were pertinent, others more randomly picked. The book read like one giant research paper where the student sits down with a stack of books on his subject and quotes pieces verbatim from all of them. It also reads like an almanac. That said, this book does list a thousand things previously unknown to me, just not exactly the things I was after.

Rating:
Summary: Like an extra long research paper by a C student
Review: A few years ago I spent nearly a year travelling around Australia, and returned curious about some of the strange things I had seen there. I asked for this book for my birthday because of the good reviews it had received on Amazon.com. However, when I finally got it none of my biggest questions were addressed. Previously, most of my knowledge of these subjects came from reading the little natural history bits in my Lonely Planet Guide or by watching certain T.V. documentaries. I wanted a source of information that went beyond these and revealed some of the underlying explanations and science involved. I wanted to know the origins of some of the famous landforms such as the Bungle Bungle or Ayer's Rock. I'd also wanted to know what shaped the dry interior. I heard it was the bottom of a sea at one time. What the book does talk about in the geology section is the split up of Gondwana in multi-paged depth, and gives no more special attention to Australia than other continents. None of my questions were addressed, and the facts listed were not interesting to me. In the section on animals the author gave no real overview on their origins, and just listed a number of the most popular species and gave a little characterization of each. In many parts of the book I found that my tourist's range of knowledge actually included some things the author didn't mention, such as how aboriginal burning shaped the ecology. Also, it often seemed that the author did not thoroughly know his subject matter, but was just quoting from one of his sources. Eventually I began to loose confidence that this book was written by an expert on the natural history of Australia and more by a publication-hopeful writer (this is my opinion based on his bio)who compiled an incomplete list of facts from numerous sources, some of which were pertinent, others more randomly picked. The book read like one giant research paper where the student sits down with a stack of books on his subject and quotes pieces verbatim from all of them. It also reads like an almanac. That said, this book does list a thousand things previously unknown to me, just not exactly the things I was after.

Rating:
Summary: poorly written
Review: I thought Tim A. Berra's "A Natural History of Australia" was a half baked research paper by a C student. It made me doubt that the author was really an expert on the natural history of Australia or just compiling a list of miscellaneous facts from numerous sources and presenting them in organized text form. There are several inexcusable holes in this list of facts as well. Understandably, anyone writing a book with a title like this would be confounded by the huge subject of evolution in this isolated continent. But instead of attempting an expository essay on this he, more-or-less, lists several key dates on evolution's time-line (many of these are on a planetary scale not specific to Oz) and leaves it at that. The two page chapter on geography explains next to nothing, historically speaking. It tells you that Australia is the flattest, driest, most stable continent etc etc, but never digs into the geologic past to say WHY. By avoiding the stories, and explanations behind WHY Australia became such a unique place the book misses its own supposed HISTORICAL point. That frustrated me. I would recommend this book only as a natural almanac full of thousands of facts and photos, but never as a natural history.

Rating:
Summary: poorly written
Review: I thought Tim A. Berra's "A Natural History of Australia" was a half baked research paper by a C student. It made me doubt that the author was really an expert on the natural history of Australia or just compiling a list of miscellaneous facts from numerous sources and presenting them in organized text form. There are several inexcusable holes in this list of facts as well. Understandably, anyone writing a book with a title like this would be confounded by the huge subject of evolution in this isolated continent. But instead of attempting an expository essay on this he, more-or-less, lists several key dates on evolution's time-line (many of these are on a planetary scale not specific to Oz) and leaves it at that. The two page chapter on geography explains next to nothing, historically speaking. It tells you that Australia is the flattest, driest, most stable continent etc etc, but never digs into the geologic past to say WHY. By avoiding the stories, and explanations behind WHY Australia became such a unique place the book misses its own supposed HISTORICAL point. That frustrated me. I would recommend this book only as a natural almanac full of thousands of facts and photos, but never as a natural history.

Rating:
Summary: poorly written
Review: I thought Tim A. Berra's "A Natural History of Australia" was a half baked research paper by a C student. It made me doubt that the author was really an expert on the natural history of Australia or just compiling a list of miscellaneous facts from numerous sources and presenting them in organized text form. There are several inexcusable holes in this list of facts as well. Understandably, anyone writing a book with a title like this would be confounded by the huge subject of evolution in this isolated continent. But instead of attempting an expository essay on this he, more-or-less, lists several key dates on evolution's time-line (many of these are on a planetary scale not specific to Oz) and leaves it at that. The two page chapter on geography explains next to nothing, historically speaking. It tells you that Australia is the flattest, driest, most stable continent etc etc, but never digs into the geologic past to say WHY. By avoiding the stories, and explanations behind WHY Australia became such a unique place the book misses its own supposed HISTORICAL point. That frustrated me. I would recommend this book only as a natural almanac full of thousands of facts and photos, but never as a natural history.

Rating:
Summary: An "unfocussed" Natural History of Australia.
Review: The natural history of Australia is described in a light and accessible style in this book by respected naturalist Tim Berra. He attempts in the early chapters to describe the geologic history of this now arid continent and later relate it to the animals and plants found in Australia. However, the book falls short by trying to do way too much in too short a space. The author resorts to a literary form of cherry picking and loses his systematic thread as he deals with the diversity of flora and fauna. An example is the chapter entitled "Some Interesting Invertebrates". The Great Barrier Reef is especially poorly dealt with as it is treated as a series of, mainly vertebrate, photo-ops and largely ignores the intricacies of the ecosystem.

The appendices degenerate into a short overview of modern Australian culture and as such are out of place in what is supposedly a book on biology.

Rating:
Summary: Perfect travel guide to Australia
Review: This book is exactly what you need to take to Australia if you don't want to haul 15 field guides. Berra's book describes geographical areas of Oz with short descriptions of climate, physical geography, and population. An entire chapter is devoted to Australia's unique geological history, and the next is devoted to Aborigines. The rest of the book is devoted to describing Australia's unique flora and fauna, including excellent photos and range maps for many species. A chapter is devoted to each of these subjects: Plants, Saltwater organisms, Invertebrates, Freshwater Fishes, Reptiles and Amphibians, Birds, and Mammals. It is an excellent resource for people traveling to (or living in) Australia who are interested in the amazing animals and plants of the island. He also lists introduced species and (for some) their impact on native systems. It is surprisingly thorough for such an immense undertaking.