That gives us 216 square feet of continuous woven material. The carpet is twelve feet by eighteen, say. Let's start by imagining a fine Persian carpet and a hunting knife. And as the world’s landscapes, from Tasmania to the Amazon to Yellowstone, are carved into pieces by human activity, the implications of this knowledge are more urgent than ever.Īn unforgettable scientific adventure, a fascinating account of an eight-year journey of discovery, and a wake-up call for our time, David Quammen’s The Song of the Dodo is an exquisitely written book that takes the reader on a globe-circling tour of wild places and extraordinary ideas. But the dark message of island studies is that isolated ecosystems, whether natural or human-made, are also hotbeds of extinction. In this landmark of science writing, we learn how the isolation of islands makes them natural laboratories of evolutionary extravagance, as seen in the dragons of Komodo, the elephant birds of Madagascar, the giant tortoises of the Galapagos.

Through personal observation, scientific theory, and history, David Quammen examines the mysteries of evolution and extinction and radically alters our understanding of the natural world and our place within it. And as the world's landscapes, from Tasmania to the Amazon to Yellowstone, are carved into pieces by human activity, the implications of this knowledge are more urgent than ever.Īn unforgettable scientific adventure, a fascinating account of an eight-year journey of discovery, and a wake-up call for our time, David Quammen's The Song of the Dodo is an exquisitely written book that takes the reader on a globe-circling tour of wild places and extraordinary ideas.“Compulsively readable-a masterpiece, maybe the masterpiece of science journalism.” -Bill McKibben, AudubonĪ brilliant, stirring work, breathtaking in its scope and far-reaching in its message, The Song of the Dodo is a crucial book in precarious times.

'Compulsively readable-a masterpiece, maybe the masterpiece of science journalism.' -Bill McKibben, AudubonĪ brilliant, stirring work, breathtaking in its scope and far-reaching in its message, The Song of the Dodo is a crucial book in precarious times.

The song of the dodo by david quammen