AUGUST 2021 - AudioFile
Christina Delaine delivers a fable in a tone of childlike wonder as she begins her narration of the story of conservation. The tone continues as author Michelle Nijhuis describes her summer job of watching a desert tortoise. That magical feeling continues to pop up from time to time, as when Delaine describes Nijhuis’s first visit to the Smithsonian. Conservation and the people behind it aren’t all wonder, though. Delaine’s voice turns sad as Nijhuis tells of the decline of America’s bison. Her voice reflects William Temple Hornaday’s shock when he’s quoted on the subject. As Nijhuis continues conservation’s story to the present, she revisits the contributions and biases of figures like Hornaday, Aldo Leopold, and Aldous and Julian Huxley. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
12/14/2020
Efforts to prevent the loss of wildlife are “likely as old as the images of steppe bison painted on cave walls,” writes journalist Nijhuis (The Science Writer’s Essay Handbook) in this thorough history of wildlife conservation movements. She begins with the bison, a species nearly driven to extinction by humans in the late 1800s, and details how efforts to protect them led to the early conservation movement in America. From there, Nijhuis describes the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (which passed in 1918 and put an end to the plume trade, for which millions of birds were killed for their feathers) and outlines the work of environmentalist Aldo Leopold, who, during the Depression and Dust Bowl, advocated for an “ecological concept of habitat.” Until then, Nijhuis observes, conservation “meant protecting animals from bullets, not protecting shrubbery and wetlands.” As she lays out the origins of environmental groups including the World Wildlife Fund and Nature Conservancy, Nijhuis warns that organizations and governments are not doing enough to stave off mass extinction. To that end, she argues conservationists must “revive humans’ sense of responsibility towards all species.” Nijhuis’s comprehensive survey is sure to delight nature enthusiasts and those concerned with disappearing species. (Mar.)
Sarah Zielenski
"Excellent…The book truly shines…when Nijhuis is brutally honest about how the conservation movement gained a reputation for being antihuman."
Booklist (starred review)
"[An] exceptionally comprehensive and enlightening history of conservation."
Alex Orlando
"A far-ranging, powerfully written history of the conservation movement."
National Book Review
"[Nijhuis] is a gifted storyteller, capturing both the heroism of those fighting extinction and the reality of biodiversity experts who warn that many, many species are in danger of disappearing within decades."
Los Angeles Times - Rosanna Xia
"A critical—and elegantly written—examination of the western-centric systems guiding environmentalism today…Nijhuis helps us understand how to avoid repeating the mistakes of our past as we reckon with our future."
Austin Price
"Beloved Beasts raises questions that get to the heart of the conservation movement's shortcomings…[A] much-needed critical history of conservation."
USA Today
"A comprehensive history of the conservation movement—and a warning that we are not doing enough to prevent further animal mass extinction."
Dan Cryer
"Spirited and engaging…Always attuned to ironies and anomalies, Nijhuis points out the changes of heart that changed history."
Ben Goldfarb
"Beloved Beasts is the definitive history of the conservation movement, in all its turbulent, passionate, problematic glory. It shines a bright and unsparing light on environmentalism’s most influential hidden figures, and breathes new life into Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, and other heroes you thought you knew. The centuries-long campaign to protect our fellow creatures finally has the literary epic it deserves."
John Vaillant
"What a lovely, timely book. Michelle Nijhuis’s deeply mined research and wholehearted compassion for her subjects—human and animal alike—are evident on every page."
Becky Libourel Diamond
"With candor and authority, Nijhuis focuses on the intertwined relationships, backgrounds and paths of the fervent scientists and activists who spearheaded the conservation movement."
Valerie Thompson
"A definitive and informative history…Nijhuis's detailed account is clear-eyed and unvarnished in its honesty."
Amy Brady
"Lavishly researched, Beloved Beasts is a compassionate look at what humans have done—and need to do next—to protect the natural world."
Florence Williams
"Michelle Nijhuis has written a book that is both a beautiful, wise history and a measured call to action. By remembering the messy, bighearted, sometimes nearsighted, but ultimately hopeful efforts of those before us, we can be smarter as we embark on the profoundly human project of saving species other than our own."
Elena Passarello
"In a bravura turn, Michelle Nijhuis shapes three hundred years of conservation history into one riveting tale. Beloved Beasts brims with surprise, compelling characters, and opportunities for introspection about the motley human effort to catalogue, celebrate, and protect the other inhabitants of our planet."
Elizabeth Kolbert
"From the origin of the concept of species through the CRISPR revolution, Beloved Beasts is at once thoughtful and thought-provoking—a crucial addition to the literature of our troubled time."
Erica Berry
"Capacious, engrossing, and timely…Nijhuis is the sort of writer who makes excavating arcane facts and dinner-party-worthy anecdotes look effortless."
Pankiam Amer
"Heartfelt, engrossing, thought-provoking, even brutal at times, but always, painfully honest. In her storytelling, Nijhuis doesn’t gloss over the dark moments…But it’s because of her bold literary choices that the transformative and transcendent moments in this history shine a little brighter."
Jason Mark
"An environmental history that is essential reading for anyone committed to preserving life on Earth."
Elizabeth Rush
"If ‘attention is prayer,’ as Simone Weil suggests, then Michelle Nijhuis’s carefully observed Beloved Beasts is a benediction bestowed not so much upon the men and women who carry out the work of species conservation but upon the very act of living in conversation with the more-than-human world."
Library Journal
★ 03/01/2021
Science journalist and editor Nijhuis tells a wide-ranging tale in this history of a movement. She effectively tells how what began as the passion of collectors or hunters ultimately became a closer examination of wildlife and habitats by enthusiasts, and how what was once the work of individuals became the motivation of societies. Inspired to fight for endangered species and decrease the risk of extinction, formal organizations such as the National Audubon Society and World Wildlife Fund emerged, and organizational action became law over the course of time. The author covers a large group of contributors including the well-known work of Rachel Carson and E.O Wilson, while also shedding insight on the lesser-known contributions of Michael Soulé, Stewart Udall, and Rosalie Edge. Nijhuis also details how a narrow branch of biology became the rapidly growing field of biodiversity, and how first-world activism was broadened with the success of community-based conservation projects. In doing so, she engagingly relates conservation efforts of individual species, such as the whooping crane and American bison. VERDICT Nijhuis does an excellent job narrating the achievements and challenges of individuals, groups, and governments in understanding biological ecosystems and the human impact on them past, present, and future.—Catherine Lantz, Univ. of Illinois at Chicago Lib.
AUGUST 2021 - AudioFile
Christina Delaine delivers a fable in a tone of childlike wonder as she begins her narration of the story of conservation. The tone continues as author Michelle Nijhuis describes her summer job of watching a desert tortoise. That magical feeling continues to pop up from time to time, as when Delaine describes Nijhuis’s first visit to the Smithsonian. Conservation and the people behind it aren’t all wonder, though. Delaine’s voice turns sad as Nijhuis tells of the decline of America’s bison. Her voice reflects William Temple Hornaday’s shock when he’s quoted on the subject. As Nijhuis continues conservation’s story to the present, she revisits the contributions and biases of figures like Hornaday, Aldo Leopold, and Aldous and Julian Huxley. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
★ 2020-12-23
A fine history of the genesis of the conservation movement.
Nijhuis, a project editor at the Atlantic and co-editor of The Science Writers’ Handbook, admits that the sixth extinction shows little sign of slackening, and people are still killing too many animals and destroying too much habitat. On the bright side, modern conservation movements have many victories to their credit—and even some political clout. The author delivers a vivid account of the movements’ past and present along with compelling minibiographies of the lives of many brilliant and energetic if not always admirable men and women. Without their work, there would be “no bison, no tigers, and no elephants; there would be few if any whales, wolves, or egrets.” Like many histories of the natural world, Nijhuis looks at Carl Linnaeus and Charles Darwin, but readers will encounter many other intriguing names and factoids. For example, who saved the first animal from extinction? William Hornaday, who almost single-handedly saved the bison and went on to become the director of the Bronx Zoo. Other lively characters populating this illuminating narrative include Rosalie Edge, who established the first reserve for birds of prey in 1934; and the well-known crusaders (Aldo Leopold, Julian Huxley, Rachel Carson) who converted environmentalism into a mass movement. The author concludes with a review of current efforts to preserve wildlife and wilderness, and she believes that in addition to ecological concerns, “conservationists need to pay a lot more attention to human complexity.” Despite progress in many areas, in 2019, “a global assessment by an international panel of biodiversity experts estimated that a million species were in danger of going extinct within decades—including as many as a quarter of all plant and animal species.” Compassionate yet realistic and candid throughout, Nijhuis makes a significant contribution to the literature on environmentalism.
An engrossing history of conservation and its accomplishments.
