The Eternal Frontier: An Ecological History of North America and Its Peoples |
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The Eternal Frontier: An Ecological History of North America and Its Peoples
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by Tim Flannery
Sales Rank: 233927
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List Price: $16.00
$10.88
At Amazon
on 6-19-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Paperback with 432 pages
Published by: Grove Press April 17, 2002
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0802138888
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0802138880
Book Dimensions:
9 x 6 x 1.1 inches
Weighs: 1.3 pounds
Amazon.com's Best of 2001
Reading The Eternal Frontier might be the closest you'll get to taking a class from Tim Flannery--and that alone makes it an opportunity just too good to pass up. This ambitious retelling of North America's dramatic ecological history grew out of a course that Flannery taught at Harvard surveying the continent's ancient past up to its tumultuous near-present: from the extraterrestrial "death-dealing visitor" that struck 65 million years ago all the way through to the tidal invasions, adaptations, and extinctions that have washed over North America since, each idiosyncratically influenced by an ever-changing geology, geography, and climate.
Flannery admirably balances his twin roles as scientist and storyteller. As a thoughtful teacher, he employs memorable and effective examples to illustrate broader topics, but he's also willing to commit to theoretical explanations (with fair warning) when necessary to thread together the narrative. But Flannery's greatest strength might simply be the empathy he inspires as a fellow human being trying to sort out an intricate, often richly gorgeous puzzle. It's hard not to identify with his curiosity and enthusiasm, whether he's recalling memories of late nights spent as a child reading the How and Why Book of Prehistoric Mammals (and the uintathere nightmares that followed) or just marveling over the vast American West from his window seat on a plane.
The Eternal Frontier certainly leaves you with a solid outline of the how, why, and when of North America's enigmatic ecology, and what the implications of a dwindling frontier have for our future. But don't be surprised when what you remember best are Flannery's countless details--worthy of repeating at any self-respecting pub--from marsupial sperm that swim in pairs to the reason that Native American cultures might owe their very existence to squirrels' taste in nuts. --Paul Hughes
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
If Nature itself has a nature, it's the desire for balance. In a fascinating chronicle of our continent's evolution, Flannery shows, however, that this desire must forever be frustrated. Flannery starts his tale with the asteroid collision that destroyed the dinosaurs, ends with the almost equally cataclysmic arrival of humankind and fills the middle with an engaging survey of invaders from other lands, wild speciation and an ever-changing climate, all of which have kept the ecology of North America in a constant state of flux. We see the rise of horses, camels and dogs (cats are Eurasian), the rapid extinction of mammoths, mastodons and other megafauna at the hands of prehistoric man, and the even quicker extinction of the passenger pigeon and other creatures more recently. Flannery also spotlights plenty of scientists at work, most notably one who tries to butcher an elephant as a prehistoric man would have butchered a mastodon, and another who had the intestinal fortitude to check whether meat would keep if a carcass were stored at the bottom of a frigid pond, the earliest of refrigerators. This material might be dense and academic in another's hands, but Flannery displays a light touch, a keen understanding of what will interest general readers and a good sense of structure, which keeps the book moving, manageable and memorable. (May)Forecast: Atlantic Monthly clearly intends to build on the reputation Flannery attained with his previous, highly acclaimed book, Throwim Way Leg and they may have a winner here. The first printing will be 60,000 copies, with a $100,000 promotional budget and a 21-city author tour.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Reader Reviews
This review is from: The Eternal Frontier: An Ecological History of North America and Its Peoples (Hardcover)
Eternal Frontier is a marvelous read, lively, insightful, fast - well, you have to go fast to cover 65 million years in 357 pages. And, boy, does Flannery cover the territory. A student of the animal kingdon, he has covered a lot of physical territory in his career, studying the remains of extinct species and searching for undescribed living ones in the forests of New Guinea. Small wonder, then, that Flannery is at his best when contemplating the forces that led to the evolution or extinction of species, or of entire classes of species. In the pages of Eternal Frontier ancient periods of warm climate conjure tropical forests in the Dakotas and create strange herbivorous beasts who munch their way across the landscape, only to be swept away by the onset of an ice age. The pleasure for readers is that Flannery doesn't just describe what took place, he leads us into an understanding of the process whereby creatures evolve to fill vacant niches in an evolving ecosystem. It is wonderful stuff. The closer we come to the present day, however, the further Flannery moves from material he knows really well. Readers spoiled by such masterful works of ecological history as William Cronon's Changes in the Land and Donald Worster's Rivers of Empire will find Flannery shallow indeed. In truth, this entire, wonderful book will not bring much pleasure to readers who are familiar with the subjects covered. When confronted with confusing evidence that might support one of several plausible historical scenarios, Flannery picks the one he finds most compelling and dismisses the others. Extinction of the paleolithic megafauna, for example, was here caused by overhunting by spear-carrying paleo-Indians, the first humans to enter the western hemisphere, who arrived about 13,000 years ago. This dismisses some major areas of evidence to the contrary. Flannery is, of course, familiar with this evidence. Readers will not discover how compelling some of it is. When the story reaches European settlement, it becomes clear that Flannery has only a cursory familiarity with the literature. The irony is that both when dealing with the pre-history he knows so well and with the historical period with which he is less familiar, Flannery has a sure instinct for apparant truth. Most of the hypothesis that he ignores or dismisses are, indeed, less well-supported than the story he tells. And even when in discussing the historical period he gets lots of the details wrong, he has the grand outline right. A reader of Eternal Frontier will have a very good grasp of how nature continues to shape America. The advantage of Flannery's approach is that he tells a ripping good story. It moves quickly, it is fun to read, it is thought-provoking, and it is even true.
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The Eternal Frontier: An Ecological History of North America and Its Peoples
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Price: $10.88
Updated on 6-19-2008.
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