Reviews

Most natural histories tend to be time- and place-specific, describing, for example, a particular lake, valley, or forest. Flannery is one of the few nature writers able to sustain a big-picture perspective that is both sweeping and substantive. Reminiscent of The Future Eaters (LJ 9/1/95), Flannery's account of his native Australia, this new book explores approximately 65 million years of the ecology of the entire North American continent. Beginning with the asteroid impact presumed to have caused the extinction of dinosaurs, Flannery paints with broad strokes that melt glaciers, raise mountains, cover the land with forests and new species, and, ultimately, create human civilizations unlike any others on Earth. Throughout, he unabashedly celebrates the uniqueness of geographical, geological, climatological, and cultural forces that have shaped this "eternal frontier." The nearest comparison might be with John McPhee's anthology of essays, Annals of the Former World (LJ 5/1/98), but Flannery's book has the virtue of being a continuous narrative, so it reads like an unfolding story. Highly recommended. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 1/01.] Gregg Sapp, Science Lib., SUNY at Albany Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

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.