★ 01/24/2022
Pulitzer Prize winner Davis (The Gulf ), an environmental history professor at the University of Florida, scores with this sweeping history of America’s unofficial symbolic bird. Combining natural, political, and cultural histories, Davis offers a wealth of surprising information and demolishes popular misconceptions, dispelling, for example, the idea that the turkey was a candidate for the U.S. national bird. He covers the use of the eagle as a symbol of fidelity, self-reliance, and courage; describes once-held beliefs that it was a scavenging pest; and explains threats to its survival, both from hunters and pollutants, that almost made it extinct in the 20th century. As Davis recounts, the story of the bald eagle is a rare example of successful conservation: twice—through the Bald Eagle Protection Act of 1940 and the ban on DDT in 1972—the creature was pulled back from the brink and has since gone on to achieve a sustainable population. Well-timed humor—as when Davis notes that the fiercely loud cry of the bald eagle in the opening of The Colbert Report was actually the squawk of a red-tailed hawk—keeps things moving, and his writing is vivid: “On descent, primary flight feathers splay and twist; tail feathers pitch upward and downward.” This account soars. Photos. Agent: Lisa J. Adams, Garamond Agency. (Mar.)
"An impressive work of scholarship . . . . if you have any questions about our national bird, Mr. Davis’s The Bald Eagle is a great place to look for answers."
Wall Street Journal - Bill Heavey
"[A] soaring new book… The Bald Eagle is compelling and paints a dignified portrait of the famous bird, within and outside of American culture. The author’s occasional playful tone lightens the mood during its darker moments and even helps to underline the hypocrisy of the treatment of this bird of prey, simultaneously esteemed and maligned. This is a history that turns the tables on Americans; the creature that embodied the scrappiness of the early nation is now a model of resilience we can only hope to emulate."
Christian Science Monitor - Olive Fellows
"The tale, as Davis told Ideas in a recent Zoom chat from his home in Gainesville, Fla., is an unusually upbeat one in a moment of deep environmental worry. But that, he suggests, is the point."
Boston Globe - David Scharfenberg
"Davis, the Pulitzer-winning author of The Gulf , makes clear in his rollicking, poetic, wise new book that cultural and political history are an integral part of this natural history, not to be omitted if we want to tell the whole story.... Along with the famous humans, Davis never neglects the birds themselves.... Davis shines at most everything in this exuberantly expansive book, but especially at highlighting individual birds like the translocated ones making their way in the world. With eagle numbers now estimated at levels they were before 'America became America,' their comeback is astonishing."
"Splendid.... [Davis] is a meticulous historian and researcher as well as a master storyteller – an irresistible combination."
Tampa Bay Times - Collette Bancroft
02/01/2022
Pulitzer Prize winner Davis (The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea ) presents the story of the United States' national bird. Since 1782, when its image appeared on the national seal, the bald eagle has served as a celebrated American symbol. According to Davis, ornithologists of the 20th century (including John James Audubon) portrayed the bald eagle in a negative light, and many non-Indigenous Americans considered it a shameless, vicious predator. As the author tells, bald eagles were a target of violence, and many were shot or poisoned resulting in a declining population. Conscientious citizens identified the bird's diminishing numbers with the shrinking of American wilderness as a whole and recognized the need for preservation measures (eventually, 1918's Migratory Bird Treaty Act and 1940's Bald Eagle Protection Act). VERDICT This fascinating and readable work will appeal to fans of the majestic bald eagle and to those interested in the natural, cultural, and political history of the United States.—Dave Pugl
★ 2021-12-21
Davis, whose 2017 book The Gulf won the Kirkus Prize and the Pulitzer Prize, creates an equally sweeping cultural and natural history centered on the majestic bald eagle, a bird endemic only to North America. Regarded as the king of the avian species, symbolizing “fidelity, self-reliance, strength, and courage,” in 1782, the bald eagle was chosen to be emblazoned on the Great Seal of the United States. Debate over the image was, unsurprisingly, vigorous; Benjamin Franklin, it was rumored, proposed a turkey. The eagle prevailed, however, representing “the picture of the nation’s full-fledged independence and sovereignty.” As much as the image inspired patriotic pride, some people—farmers who accused them of preying on livestock and even John James Audubon, who called the bird “ferocious” and “overbearing”—derided them. Farmers killed them, and so did early naturalists. Lacking cameras and binoculars, felling eagles was the only way to investigate them closely. Eagles, Davis writes, were “sentenced to death by the ornithology of the day.” By the late 19th century, however, attitudes about humans’ responsibility to nature began to change. Although in “a land of plenty” there seemed no need for conservation movements, the threat of bald eagles’ extinction ignited efforts to save the species. By 1900, 22 states had Audubon societies, and some states outlawed the hunting of eagles. Examination of their migration patterns, courtship, breeding, and communication revealed that eagles displayed “fidelity to both spouse and home,” were caring parents, and had no interest in carrying off human babies—once a widespread fear. In the 1950s, however, the potent pesticide DDT emerged as a devastating threat, causing nest failures: eggs not being laid and laid ones failing to hatch. The author’s consistently lively, captivating narrative celebrates the naturalists, scientists, activists, artists (Andy Warhol, among them), politicians, and breeders who have championed the extraordinary “charismatic raptor.”
A rousing tale of a species’ survival.
"Davis' unique look at a bird we all thought we were familiar with is well-researched and chock-full of fascinating historical and nature-oriented vignettes."
"The new book by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea feels especially timely, with several new bird extinctions announced last year and the need to counter those losses with tales of conservation success."
The Revelator - John R. Platt
"A feel-good story.... [A] engaging and highly detailed cultural and natural history of the unofficial national bird (Davis points out that no president or Congress has ever signed a proclamation or law making it official).... Davis deftly brings alive the bald eagle as a real animal, separate from both the myths of its rapaciousness and the symbolic majesty that at times has made the birds emblems for organizations ranging from the National Rifle Association to the National Wildlife Foundation."
San Francisco Chronicle - Matt Jaffe
"Jack E. Davis wants it very clearly understood that a bald eagle cannot, in fact, pluck an infant girl from her carriage, carry her clenched between its talons to its nest, and feed her to its eaglets. Okay?.... Why did Americans nearly drive America’s bird to extinction? In The Bald Eagle , Davis, who won a Pulitzer Prize for The Gulf, a clever history of 'America’s Sea,' has written a double biography: a history of the species and a history of the symbol.... The Bald Eagle is the rare natural history that plays as a comedy. It’s a dark comedy, however, because its lessons are not easily transferable to our broader, ongoing ecological catastrophe. The bald eagle is not only a symbol of American might. It is a symbol of American exceptionalism.... A moving portrait of a species victimized for its own evolutionary successes."
The Atlantic - Nathaniel Rich
No symbol is more closely linked to the United States than the bald eagle, this audiobook points out. Yet this magnificent creature is neither the official national symbol nor even the official American bird. This fact is among the interesting bits of information presented in this mythological and biological examination of the bald eagle. Dan John Miller offers an able narration. His even tone exactly matches the author’s straightforward style. In the instances when the author uses highly complex sentence structure, Miller breaks it down for listeners without losing the overall point or sense of the sentence. There are few direct quotations, so simple pauses are enough to mark where quotes begin and end. R.C.G. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
No symbol is more closely linked to the United States than the bald eagle, this audiobook points out. Yet this magnificent creature is neither the official national symbol nor even the official American bird. This fact is among the interesting bits of information presented in this mythological and biological examination of the bald eagle. Dan John Miller offers an able narration. His even tone exactly matches the author’s straightforward style. In the instances when the author uses highly complex sentence structure, Miller breaks it down for listeners without losing the overall point or sense of the sentence. There are few direct quotations, so simple pauses are enough to mark where quotes begin and end. R.C.G. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
