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A review by cassieferri
Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction by Michelle Nijhuis
5.0
Beloved Beasts weaves pivotal conservation stories together to create a heartbreakingly beautiful and tragic narrative explaining the evolution of conservation as we know it today. Needless to say, I loved absolutely every second of this book.
We typically learn about the people featured in the book (like Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, Julian Huxley, and Rosalie Edge) as disjointed figures in a broader history of the natural sciences. Nijhuis challenges this norm by breathing life into the featured naturalists and depicting each story as a moving piece in an interconnected, ongoing epic that we, too, are a part of.
This book contains everything necessary to make it a powerful, modern, and culturally aware recounting of conservation history. It is well-researched and humorous, never hesitant to document the flaws of past conservationists (ex. racism, sexism, eugenics), and is as uplifting as it is heartbreaking at times.
If this book doesn't revitalize your sense of duty to keep fighting the centuries-long battle to protect the natural world, then nothing will. A must-read for nature-lovers and ecologists.
We typically learn about the people featured in the book (like Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, Julian Huxley, and Rosalie Edge) as disjointed figures in a broader history of the natural sciences. Nijhuis challenges this norm by breathing life into the featured naturalists and depicting each story as a moving piece in an interconnected, ongoing epic that we, too, are a part of.
This book contains everything necessary to make it a powerful, modern, and culturally aware recounting of conservation history. It is well-researched and humorous, never hesitant to document the flaws of past conservationists (ex. racism, sexism, eugenics), and is as uplifting as it is heartbreaking at times.
If this book doesn't revitalize your sense of duty to keep fighting the centuries-long battle to protect the natural world, then nothing will. A must-read for nature-lovers and ecologists.