Ten Birds That Changed the World

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Ten Birds That Changed the World | Stephen Moss Ten Birds That Changed the World | Stephen Moss

During the first three months of 1885, 750,000 skins of little and snowy egrets were auctioned in London. From Odin’s faithful raven companions to Darwin’s finches, and from the wild turkey of the Americas to the emperor penguin as potent symbol of the climate crisis, this is a fascinating, eye-opening, and endlessly engaging work of natural history. On top of all this, at the end of chapter, the author attempts to mislead readers by implying that comments made in 2018 interview in Rolling Stone magazine were uttered at the Jan 06 protests. A rare 'five' for this one, which elegantly and passionately uses ten specific birds to highlight the wider character of man's relationship with nature.

I found myself motivated to take action toward improving the lot of species in my own area, but the book did not encourage or guide its readers to act upon their own examinations of conscious. I was lucky enough to see Stephen Moss speak at a local history festival and was swept up in his enthusiasm for birds and the fun stories he had to share from this book. What about training a bird to do what humans can't/won't, as in the case of pigeons who took messages into enemy territory? Ten Birds That Changed the World by Stephen Moss is a wonderful book that takes a closer look about our past, the world’s existence, and our relationships amongst nature, the planet, and one another throughout time through the stories highlighting ten different birds.

Ten Birds That Changed the World | NHBS Good Reads Ten Birds That Changed the World | NHBS Good Reads

Bald Eagles as political and ancient symbols of power: the Aztec 'thunderbird', Roman standards, Napoleon, Nazis and Trump. His books include The Robin: A Biography, A Bird in the Bush, The Bumper Book of Nature, Wild Hares and Hummingbirds and Wild Kingdom. There are thousands of bird species on earth, but with a very well-chosen ten, Moss provides a panoramic look at how the feathered ones have influenced human mythology, science, politics, and even self-understanding. With the campaign of extermination boiling on for two years, and up to a billion birds dead from poison, strangulation, beatings and plain exhaustion, victory seemed at hand.

Even today, despite a very worrying disconnection between ourselves and the rest of nature, birds continue to play a role in our lives. In some cases, like the dodo, the bald eagle, the snowy egret, and--most recently--the emperor penguin, the book denotes how humanity pushes species toward extinction. Birds – thin-boned, tender-fleshed, often none too smart – are objects of cruelty as often as they’re subjects of fascination. We have hunted and domesticated them for food; venerated them in our mythologies, religions, and rituals; exploited them for their natural resources; and been inspired by them for our music, art, and poetry.