Nature's Ghosts: Confronting Extinction from the Age of Jefferson to the Age of Ecology

by Mark V. Barrow Jr.

The rapid growth of the American environmental movement in recent decades obscures the fact that long before the first Earth Day and the passage of the Endangered Species Act, naturalists and concerned citizens recognized—and worried about—the problem of human-caused extinction.

 

As Mark V. Barrow reveals in Nature’s Ghosts, the threat of species loss has haunted Americans since the early days of the republic. From Thomas Jefferson’s day—when the fossil remains of such fantastic lost animals as the mastodon and the woolly mammoth were first reconstructed—through the pioneering conservation efforts of early naturalists like John James Audubon and John Muir, Barrow shows how Americans came to understand that it was not only possible for entire species to die out, but that humans themselves could be responsible for their extinction. With the destruction of the passenger pigeon and the precipitous decline of the bison, professional scientists and wildlife enthusiasts alike began to understand that even very common species were not safe from the juggernaut of modern, industrial society. That realization spawned public education and legislative campaigns that laid the foundation for the modern environmental movement and the preservation of such iconic creatures as the bald eagle, the California condor, and the whooping crane.

 

A sweeping, beautifully illustrated historical narrative that unites the fascinating stories of endangered animals and the dedicated individuals who have studied and struggled to protect them, Nature’s Ghosts offers an unprecedented view of what we’ve lost—and a stark reminder of the hard work of preservation still ahead.

 

Genres: History, Environment, Nonfiction, Natural History, Ecology, Science, Nature

512 pages, Hardcover

First published October 15, 2009

Reviews

[David Spanagel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Several sections of Mark Barrow's book could serve as excellent targeted reading assignments in my interdisciplinary course on Extinctions. In particular, I am excited about pointing future students to Mark's cogent discussions of:
- the global awakening that some Americans experienced after early 20th century efforts to negotiate a Migratory Bird Treaty ("Crossing Boundaries" pp. 140-148);
- efforts to understand and prevent extinction of the heath hen ("The Trials and Tribulations of the Heath Hen" and "Enter Alfred Gross, Exit Booming Ben" pp. 263-273);
- how Cold War atomic testing and indiscriminate pesticide use in post WWII America provoked a profound shift in values and perspective ("The Age of Ecology" pp. 306-310); and
- the dynamics and consequences of 1970s PR campaigns to address the endangerment of charismatic species of the air, land, and sea, which helped to justify sweeping new Federal powers to protect habitats and limit preciously unfettered industrial and commercial activities ("Saving Marine Mammals", "Endangered Species Redux", and "Nature on a Leash" pp. 331-344).
Similarly, the Concluding chapter provides a wonderful synthesis of the book's argument while carrying both the Federal policy and the conservation biology narratives up through the end of the twentieth century.

[Stephen Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

(I know this isn't a fair metric by which to judge a book--and this has nothing to do with my star rating--but, man oh man, this book had more typographic and editing errors than any other professionally published book I've ever seen. I'm talking an average of 1-2 misprints per page when most books don't have that many from cover to cover. It's pretty distracting. Did the University of Chicago Press lay off their copy editors or something?)

The first few chapters of this provide a clear, crisp, engaging overview of the "Great Chain of Being" (scala naturae), which deemed extinction a cosmological impossibility; comparative anatomist Georges Cuvier's use of mastodon bones to prove extinction had indeed happened in the prehistoric past; the gradual realization--by observing passenger pigeons, great auks, dodos, and bison--that extinction was still happening, and was largely caused by humans; and the beginnings of the conservation movement.

As the book wore on, however, I felt that it was becoming less of a narrative about the historical ideology surrounding extinction and more of an encyclopedic bombardment of names, dates, and biographical details. Maybe it's just me, but the content eventually stopped being engaging, the typos became more and more distracting, and I stopped being able to get through it about halfway through.

[Gregory · Rating 4 out of 5]

It might surprise modern readers to know that the idea of extinction is a fairly new concept. It was only in the late 1790s and early 1800s that naturalists and scientists first introduced the concept, and, as with most transformative ideas, it took another generation before other specialists accepted it, and longer still for it to enter popular mainstream thought. Therefore, it is not so silly that Thomas Jefferson tasked explorers Lewis and Clark with finding a mastodon. It existed, so it must still be. What Barrow does is take this developing concept of extinction forward through to the twenty-first century. It is mostly an account of naturalists and scientists developing the idea of extinction, interacting with it, confronting it, and understanding its full implications. What, for example, did extinction of one species mean to the others in the habitat? It has been a long road from Jefferson to our current understanding that climate change, deforestation, oceanic acidification, etc., is killing of species faster than we can even catalog them. This book explains that journey. It is not a history of extinct animals or conservation, although those things are discussed in the Nature's Ghost. And, yes, through the last two plus centuries, scientists and naturalists fought each other on the importance of extinction and what to do about it.

[Ryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

A long and rambling account of the history of wildlife conservation in the United States going back all the way to Thomas Jefferson and his mammoth fossils, through the growing awareness and acceptance of species extinctions, then how humans were becoming the main cause of it, and the increasingly formal scientific study of ecology that led finally to the Endangered Species Act of 1973, spanning over two centuries. In between the author also threw in the story of the discovery of evolution and island biogeography, while long and detailed case studies on specific people and the animals they were associated with made this more of an academic text than anything else.

A thorough historical account akin to a doctoral thesis on a specific topic, and not for the casual reader to be sure.

[Aaron · Rating 3 out of 5]

A detailed and well-researched longue durée narrative of extinction and conservation in America, from Jefferson through the Endangered Species Act. The central thesis, that naturalists were at the forefront of the anti-extinction movement, is complicated by their complicity in killing animals for museum specimens, and I wanted more analysis of this contradiction.

[Tyler Wolanin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating subject, well compartmentalized into the different strains of historic thought on the subject. Full review at link: https://tylerwolanin.com/blog/2019/2/...

[Icknay Abbecray · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sobering look at the necessity of conservation in the animal kingdom.

[David Bates · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Nature’s Ghosts Mark Barrow relates the slow progress of the idea of extinction within scientific thought during the 19th and 20th centuries. Only slowly did the understanding that a species could entirely vanish from the vast realm of nature, or that humankind could be responsible, gain a foothold. In the early nineteenth century the possibility did not accord with the general belief in the stability of the created world, and the Great Chain of Being. Confronted with fossil specimens forwarded to Monticello, for instance, it was natural for Jefferson to assume that the fantastic undiscovered animals which produced them must still exist somewhere in the uncharted lands of the west. As, with the aid of growing state support, naturalists specialized and professionalized their fields, the taxonomic emphasis on collecting and cataloguing specimens that typified American science brought ongoing extinctions into view as specimens of certain species grew rarer. Yet the adoption of the theory evolution through natural selection for a time made the disappearance of species seem like an ordinary process. As Darwin wrote, “We need not marvel at extinction . . . [for] the extinction of old forms and the production of new forms are intimately linked.” But by the early decades of the twentieth century it had become clear that normal processes were not causing extinctions and Barrow’s central argument is that activism to protect threatened species had its epicenter in the scientific communities where they were studied and whose sympathy they gained culminating in the Endangered Species Act of 1973.

[Nathan · Rating 2 out of 5]

A brisk yet cursory overview of the conservation movement in its various iterations. The narrative is energetic and broad, though sometimes at the expense of detail and almost always at the expense of emotional appeal. Just as well; Barrow's refusal to fetishize the more charismatica animals and his dispassionate analysis of the disappearance of species is more effective than if he had aimed for an emotional appeal.
His history of the political machinations behind various conservation movements, more subtle and nuanced than most I have read, was very interesting and quite revealing, if not very effectively connected to his broader analysis.
The main problem is exactly that sense of disjointedness. Barrow might have honed the histories of the several conservation movements into a single thesis quite easily, but he didn't and the book's focus suffers for it.

Nonetheless, an accessible and readable starting place.

[Kirsten · Rating 3 out of 5]

This dude gets an A+ for thorough research, and at times this book flew by. At other times, it dragged on.
Essentially this book chronologically lays out the study of natural history from the earliest European hobbyists and some native cultures to the environmental movement in the 1970s. It only talks briefly about what is being done now.
There are a lot of names, old dead people, and moldy studies on extinct animals, but it is interesting to see the progression and change of attitudes through time, I just wish he had skimmed a little more at some junctures in time.
I did think the chapters on specific animal groups were interesting, such as raptors and other predators, those we just sketches of what happened through time with animal groups and how activism secured protection for these important species.

All in all very well written, just dry at times and kind of wordy. Written more as a history book than a scientific one, along the lines of a Douglas Brinkley type book.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good overview. Seemingly without bias. Factual and well written.

[Craig · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyed the book. Use it as a reference to advocate for wildlife by learning from the ones who started the movement. I see what was successful and try to apply it as they did.