A fascinating, authoritative avian history.
A study of birds as inspiration, enlightenment, and food.
Melding science, natural history, memoir, and travelogue, ornithologist Birkhead offers a commodious history of humans’ connection to birds, from prehistoric times to the current burgeoning interest in bird-watching. He begins in southern Spain, where depictions of more than 200 birds were discovered in Neolithic caves. This “birthplace of bird study” raises the question of the artists’ motivation: Do the images represent totemism, suggesting that birds were worshipped? Did the artists pay homage to birds prized for food? Did the images serve as a kind of field guide? In ancient Egypt, mummified birds were found in catacombs, preserved as food, pets for the deceased, or votive offerings. Birkhead examines early interest in investigating birds (by Aristotle and Pliny the Elder, for example); falconry as pastime, an “expensive, time-consuming” indulgence of aristocrats; and the medieval veneration of birds as “hovering midway between heaven and earth, half angels, half animals,” which can be deduced from the appearance of birds in religious paintings. As prey—sometimes for food, sometimes for sport—bird populations often have been decimated. Tudor England fostered an “unthinking persecution of wildlife” that included birds seen as “vermin.” In the late 1950s, Mao Zedong set off mass killings of sparrows, blamed for stealing grain. The 17th century saw a marked interest in scientific investigation, resulting in a proliferation of description, collection, and illustration of birds. Victorians paradoxically cherished birds, enjoying a vogue for caged songbirds but also for amassing specimens of birds, skins, and eggs. From acorn woodpeckers to zebra finches, Birkhead examines bird habitat, behavior, cultural meaning, and physiology in species around the world. He creates engaging portraits of the often eccentric individuals involved in bird investigations and reports on some exotic uses of birds for food—flamingos’ fatty tongues, for example, roast peacock, and fattened herons. This beautifully produced volume is replete with drawings, photographs, maps, and vivid color plates.
A fascinating, authoritative avian history.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-691-23992-7
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Princeton Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
HISTORY | NATURE | SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY | ANCIENT | WORLD
PERSPECTIVES
A quirky wonder of a book.
A Peabody Award–winning NPR science reporter chronicles the life of a turn-of-the-century scientist and how her quest led to significant revelations about the meaning of order, chaos, and her own existence.
Miller began doing research on David Starr Jordan (1851-1931) to understand how he had managed to carry on after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed his work. A taxonomist who is credited with discovering “a full fifth of fish known to man in his day,” Jordan had amassed an unparalleled collection of ichthyological specimens. Gathering up all the fish he could save, Jordan sewed the nameplates that had been on the destroyed jars directly onto the fish. His perseverance intrigued the author, who also discusses the struggles she underwent after her affair with a woman ended a heterosexual relationship. Born into an upstate New York farm family, Jordan attended Cornell and then became an itinerant scholar and field researcher until he landed at Indiana University, where his first ichthyological collection was destroyed by lightning. In between this catastrophe and others involving family members’ deaths, he reconstructed his collection. Later, he was appointed as the founding president of Stanford, where he evolved into a Machiavellian figure who trampled on colleagues and sang the praises of eugenics. Miller concludes that Jordan displayed the characteristics of someone who relied on “positive illusions” to rebound from disaster and that his stand on eugenics came from a belief in “a divine hierarchy from bacteria to humans that point[ed]…toward better.” Considering recent research that negates biological hierarchies, the author then suggests that Jordan’s beloved taxonomic category—fish—does not exist. Part biography, part science report, and part meditation on how the chaos that caused Miller’s existential misery could also bring self-acceptance and a loving wife, this unique book is an ingenious celebration of diversity and the mysterious order that underlies all existence.
A quirky wonder of a book.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6027-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
A remarkably thorough and thoughtful case for the reconciliation between science and faith.
A duo of French mathematicians makes the scientific case for God in this nonfiction book.
Since its 2021 French-language publication in Paris, this work by Bolloré and Bonnassies has sold more than 400,000 copies. Now translated into English for the first time by West and Jones, the book offers a new introduction featuring endorsements from a range of scientists and religious leaders, including Nobel Prize-winning astronomers and Roman Catholic cardinals. This appeal to authority, both religious and scientific, distinguishes this volume from a genre of Christian apologetics that tends to reject, rather than embrace, scientific consensus. Central to the book’s argument is that contemporary scientific advancements have undone past emphases on materialist interpretations of the universe (and their parallel doubts of spirituality). According to the authors’ reasoned arguments, what now forms people’s present understanding of the universe—including quantum mechanics, relativity, and the Big Bang—puts “the question of the existence of a creator God back on the table,” given the underlying implications. Einstein’s theory of relativity, for instance, presupposes that if a cause exists behind the origin of the universe, then it must be atemporal, non-spatial, and immaterial. While the book’s contentions related to Christianity specifically, such as its belief in the “indisputable truths contained in the Bible,” may not be as convincing as its broader argument on how the idea of a creator God fits into contemporary scientific understanding, the volume nevertheless offers a refreshingly nuanced approach to the topic. From the work’s outset, the authors (academically trained in math and engineering) reject fundamentalist interpretations of creationism (such as claims that Earth is only 6,000 years old) as “fanciful beliefs” while challenging the philosophical underpinnings of a purely materialist understanding of the universe that may not fit into recent scientific paradigm shifts. Featuring over 500 pages and more than 600 research notes, this book strikes a balance between its academic foundations and an accessible writing style, complemented by dozens of photographs from various sources, diagrams, and charts.
A remarkably thorough and thoughtful case for the reconciliation between science and faith.Pub Date: Oct. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9789998782402
Page Count: 562
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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