Böcker av David Quammen

First, a horse in Brisbane falls ill: fever, swelling, bloody froth. Then thirteen others drop dead. The foreman at the stables becomes ill and the trainer dies. This title tracks these infections to their source and asks what we can do to prevent some new pandemic spreading across the face of the earth.

Why have island ecosystems always suffered such high rates of extinction? Over the past eight years, David Quammen has followed the threads of island biogeography on a globe-encircling journey of discovery.

"In this essay collection, David Quammen journeys to places where civilization meets raw nature"--

For millennia, lions, tigers, and their man-eating kin have kept our dark, scary forests dark and scary, and their predatory majesty has been the stuff of folklore. But by the year 2150 big predators may only exist on the other side of glass barriers and chain-link fences. Their gradual disappearance is changing the very nature of our existence. We no longer occupy an intermediate position on the food chain; instead we survey it invulnerably from above-so far above that we are in danger of forgetting that we even belong to an ecosystem.Casting his expert eye over the rapidly diminishing areas of wilderness where predators still reign, the award-winning author of The Song of the Dodo and The Tangled Tree examines the fate of lions in India's Gir forest, of saltwater crocodiles in northern Australia, of brown bears in the mountains of Romania, and of Siberian tigers in the Russian Far East. In the poignant and troublesome ferocity of these embattled creatures, we recognize something primeval deep within us, something in danger of vanishing forever.

Interweaving personal observation, scientific theory, and history, this beautifully written book takes the reader on a globe-spanning tour of wild places and ideas. "An epic adventure of the mind and spirit."--Robert Kanigel, The New York Times Book Review. Maps.

Longlisted for the National Book Award for Nonfiction and A New York Times Notable Book of 2018. Our understanding of the `tree of life', with powerful implications for human genetics, human health and our own human nature, has recently completely changed.

Tracking these great and terrible beasts through the toughest terrain in the world, Quammen 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 3000 years.

Drawing from Charles Darwins secret "transmutation" notebooks and his personal letters, acclaimed science journalist Quammen has sketched a vivid life portrait of the man whose work never ceases to be controversial.

A revised and expanded edition of Quammen's first book of nonfiction, including the best of his recent work.