Great and terrible flesh-eating beasts have always shared the landscape with humans. Now, of course, as humans spread and despoil the planet, predators may only survive on the glass barriers and chain-link fences. David Quammen is no armchair evolutionary theorist, and, in "The Song of Dodo", everything he writes about he has experienced first-hand. In this book, he examines the fate of lions in India's Gir forest, salt water crocodiles in northern Australia, brown bears in the mountains of Romania and Siberian tigers. He is equally intrigued by the traditional relationship between the great predators and the people who live among them, and weaves into his story the fears and myths that have haunted humankind for millennia.

Monster of God : The Man-Eating Predator in the Jungles of History and the Mind

Science & Math

DAVID QUAMMEN

Biological Sciences

Hutchinson

In Darwin's time, island biogeography was the science that opened Victorian minds to the wonder of evolution. Today with all the world's wild landscape being chopped into island-like fragments, it's the science of jeopardy and extinction. This book combines science, historical narrative and travel.

The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinctions

Scribner

THE SONG OF THE DODO, ISLAND BIOGEOGRAPHY IN AN AGE OF EXTINCTION

London: Hutchinson

Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic

Vintage

Evolution, during the early nineteenth century, was an idea in the air. Other thinkers had suggested it, but no one had proposed a cogent explanation for HOW evolution occurs. Then, in September 1838, a young Englishman named Charles Darwin hit upon the idea that 'natural selection' among competing individuals would lead to wondrous adaptations and species diversity. Twenty-one years passed between that epiphany and publication of ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. The human drama and scientific basis of Darwin's twenty-one-year delay constitute a fascinating, tangled tale that elucidates the character of a cautious naturalist who initiated an intellectual revolution. THE KIWI'S EGG is a book for everyone who has ever wondered about who this man was and what he said. Drawing from Darwin's secret 'transmutation' notebooks and his personal letters, David Quammen has sketched a vivid life portrait of the man whose work never ceases to be controversial.

The Kiwi's Egg: Charles Darwin and Natural Selection (Great Discoveries)

Evolution

Weidenfeld&Nicolson

A masterpiece of science reporting that tracks the animal origins of emerging human diseases, Spillover is "fascinating and terrifying ... a real-life thriller with an outcome that affects us all" (Elizabeth Kolbert, author of The Sixth Extinction). In 2020, the novel coronavirus gripped the world in a global pandemic and led to the death of hundreds of thousands. The source of the previously unknown virus? Bats. This phenomenon--in which a new pathogen comes to humans from wildlife--is known as spillover, and it may not be long before it happens again. Prior to the emergence of our latest health crisis, renowned science writer David Quammen was traveling the globe to better understand spillover's devastating potential. For five years he followed scientists to a rooftop in Bangladesh, a forest in the Congo, a Chinese rat farm, and a suburban woodland in New York, and through high-biosecurity laboratories. He interviewed survivors and gathered stories of the dead. He found surprises in the latest research, alarm among public health officials, and deep concern in the eyes of researchers. Spillover delivers the science, the history, the mystery, and the human anguish of disease outbreaks as gripping drama. And it asks questions more urgent now than ever before: From what innocent creature, in what remote landscape, will the Next Big One emerge? Are pandemics independent misfortunes, or linked? Are they merely happening to us, or are we somehow causing them? What can be done? Quammen traces the origins of Ebola, Marburg, SARS, avian influenza, Lyme disease, and other bizarre cases of spillover, including the grim, unexpected story of how AIDS began from a single Cameroonian chimpanzee. The result is more than a clarion work of reportage. It's also the elegantly told tale of a quest, through time and landscape, for a new understanding of how our world works--and how we can survive within it.

W.W.Norton&Company

The Song Of The Dodo

Touchstone Books

The Kiwi's Egg (Charles Darwin & Natural Selection)

"Quammen brilliantly and powerfully re-creates the 19th century naturalist's intellectual and spiritual journey."--Los Angeles Times Book Review Twenty-one years passed between Charles Darwin's epiphany that "natural selection" formed the basis of evolution and the scientist's publication of On the Origin of Species. Why did Darwin delay, and what happened during the course of those two decades? The human drama and scientific basis of these years constitute a fascinating, tangled tale that elucidates the character of a cautious naturalist who initiated an intellectual revolution.

The Reluctant Mr. Darwin: An Intimate Portrait of Charles Darwin and the Making of His Theory of Evolution (Sound Library)

BBC Audiobooks

This book is amazing. As in it's predecessor, The Song of the Dodo, David Quammen acheives an amazing feat by combining science, travel stories, literature, history, and philosophy (and a sprinkling of pop culture) into a compelling discussion of the fate of what he calls "alpha predators" in this modern world. Quammen traveled to India to visit people living among lions (yes, lions), Australia to visit people living among crocodiles, Romania to visit people living with brown bears (who knew?), and the Russian Far East to visit people living with tigers. Each of these pieces is a distinct story by itself, with its own set of characters, yet Quammen sews them all together with common concerns about predators, prey, and who pays the price of having these alpha predators around. Sensitive to traditional cultures as he is to natural ecosystems, Quammen is a great writer producing unique literature that is important for our time

Monster of God: The Man-Eating Predator in the Jungles of History & the Mind

Norton

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Books by DAVID QUAMMEN