Really really loved this! I thought it was a factual and engaging without getting too bogged down and lost in technicalities of conservation. I don't mind jargon personally, but I know more complicated books lose the customers at my store more easily than books written in the way that Nijhuis has managed! This one is one I am able to easily recommend to readers of many backgrounds, science or not!

this was a great nonfiction book, it really made me think about endangered animals and what our world would be like after.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of this book. This was a great non-fiction book about the conservation movement. It was easy to read without being in any way boring, though it contained a lot of historical information. I like how the author wove the past into the present, and showed the threads of how past thinkers and advocates in the movement impacted the future.

A thoroughly researched and compellingly written history of the western conservation movement, full of fascinating tidbits along with the big picture history. The organization of the book - roughly chronological but with each chapter focused on a distinct issue or era of the movement - made it easy to follow, and Nijhuis' writing, as always, is a pleasure to read. I appreciated the inclusion of figures like Elinor Ostrom who challenge some of the commonly-held colonialist ideas that too often underlie environmental movements, like the Tragedy of th Commons. That said, I felt like the engagement with the racism and colonialism of conservation politics could have been deeper or more conclusive. She acknowledges the history and notes where it shaped major thinkers, but the story is still told from an almost entirely western perspective. Even the chapter on engaging people who subsist off east African savannas, for example, centers American and European figures in that movement, and there's little voice given to residents there or in other parts of the world about homegrown approaches to conservation. That left some of the engagement with conservation's often fraught politics and racism feeling a little shallow.

Beloved Beasts is a definitive modern survey course of the conservation movement and the players, both well known and lesser known who have shaped and guided our stewardship of the planet and our fellow creatures presented by Michelle Nijhuis. Due out 9th March 2021 from W.W. Norton & co, it's an information dense 352 pages and will be available in hardcover and ebook formats.

The author has a flowing journalistic voice with a no-nonsense accessible layman-friendly prose. The writing is readable and understandable. She doesn't sugar coat the facts or the realities, including the profiles of the conservationists she examines. The chapters follow a roughly chronological timeline and the thread which weaves them together is species conservation. The whole is punctuated throughout with illustrations drawn from media, history, and the arts. The chapter notes alone provided hours of further exploratory reading, along with the bibliography (usefully arranged by chapter relevance).

This would make a superlative choice for public library acquisition, gift giving, or home library, as well as a good support text for conservation, biology, ethics, and allied studies courses. One of my strongest reads so far in 2021.

Five stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

An epic journey through time learning about the evolution of conservation

This took me back to my Ecology, Evolution and Conservation classes at University, but interestingly covered some of the lesser known figures and moments in history in amongst with the notable ones. I really enjoyed discovering the transformation of the concept of conservation from the start of naming and classifying species, all the way to the modern notion of population biology.

It delves very deep into the topics presented, but they are told as short-stories to make each subject get the attention it deserves. I always find it fascinating to connect the dots between all these events happening through history that helped shape ideas and beliefs of today. It makes you wonder how this field will grow from here in the future..

I think the examples selected made perfect sense, and highlighted some of the major matters of debate such as “why protect an animal?”, “how does it affect us, humans?”, “are we really responsible for extinctions?”, or even “what actions can be taken?”.

Highly recommend this book to give a good perspective on the current situation of biodiversity loss across the planet and how we got to this point, in a more educational, factual, and contextual narrative rather than from an eco-extremist point of view.

Special thanks go to the netgalley team and the publishers for providing this ARC. I appreciate the opportunity to read it in exchange for an honest review.

Beloved Beasts
by Michelle Nijhuis

Published by W. W. Norton & Company on March 9, 2021

Let’s just get to the punchline: This will likely be on my shortlist of top books for 2021. I suspect you will feel the same after reading it.

Michelle Nijhuis crafts a tightly woven narrative depicting influential events in the lives of individual contributors to the modern conservation movement. This, however, is no sugar-coated idolization. Nijhuis doesn’t shy away from the significant character flaws of her subjects. She lays it out there making the accounts all the more believable. It is a wonder that any progress was made in spite of the blights of racism, colonialism, and greed.

Beginning with Carl Linnaeus and his classification system, the book paces through key political decisions and the establishment of high-profile enviro-focused organizations, wrapping up at today’s concentration on sustainability and community-based projects.

Each chapter offers a glimpse at the conservationists’ influences and thought processes. Aldo Leopold, for example, “…was curious about other species, but was fascinated by the relationships among them.” This became the basis for his body of work.

Elinor Ostrom, typically recognized for her work in economics, learned much by observing how community-led environmental resource management systems functioned, and the complex structures that guided their successful operation. Some of these systems were centuries old, yet fair and well-functioning.

In her closing thoughts, Nijhuis reminds us that the issues we face are indeed complex. We need to get comfortable with the complexity of the necessary responses to the ongoing loss of biodiversity. She rightly states that we can imagine the futures we don’t want. Let’s avoid them and let’s do better.

Nijhuis is a science journalist, trained in biology, whose work has appeared in National Geographic, the New Yorker, and she is currently a project editor at the Atlantic. She specializes in stories about conservation and global change.

The book includes some photos and illustrations that help the reader visualize the context of the accompanying text.


Why you should not miss this one:
* even if you know something about the subject matter, there are many new substantive details
* the message is important, but the delivery is not heavy-handed
* the movement’s history and the relationships between the conservationists are interesting in their own right

Thanks to NetGalley, W. W. Norton & Company, and the author, Michelle Nijhuis, for the opportunity to read a digital copy in exchange for this review.

#NetGalley #BelovedBeasts

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