In <i>Wild New World</i>, Dan Flores takes us through what (North) America looked like tens of thousands of years ago, before humans were even on the continent, through today, looking at how much things changed over time due to humans and other factors. I loved learning about how things used to be here before the United States and other current countries existed. It was heartbreaking to read about how many species we eradicated simply due to people’s avarice. Clark Cornell did an excellent job narrating the audiobook. This was an interesting and engaging book, and I recommend checking it out.

Many thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an audio ARC of this book.

Audio review: Narrator was good, kept me engaged with subject matter that was both interesting and upsetting.

Main review: This is a very ambitious book. Basically a full natural history of North America from the Pleistocene onwards, and in many ways the author pulls it off. The look at the direct result of evolving populations of humans and human culture on wildlife populations was very interesting - in fact it's pretty hard to argue that we have not caused huge amounts of extinction. Nor does Flores lecture without exploring why extinction occurs - aside from human greed and economical concerns, there's also competition between groups of humans, the issue of biological first contact and the speed of adaptation of other species. There was a lot of interesting examination of animal culture - how the difference between human intelligence and other higher mammal intelligence is one of degree not kind. And there are notes of hope here as well. That said, this was also a profoundly upsetting book. Our ancestors reached through time and stole a different future from us (and we appear to be doing the same thing to our future descendants). This brought back all the distress I felt when I was six years old and really grasping what extinction was and humanity's place in that process. So be warned, if you are sensitive to accounts of animals being hunted for sport and profit and just because, this book is pretty depressing. Overall though, it's a fascinating read and Flores does a great job of putting humans back within the context of the animal kingdomw where we belong.

This was an absolutely fascinating audiobook. I really enjoyed the narration as well. I feel like I learned so much from this. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Wild New World is a historical account of the animal experience before and after humans came to North America. Thoroughly researched and expertly laid out, there is so much to learn within the pages of this book.

I wasn’t a huge fan of the narrator. I felt the narrator lacked inflections in their voice and it came across as droning on from time to time.

Thank you so much to the publisher for giving me access to an eARC.

This is a fascinating overview of people vs. animals (really) in the Americas from like 21,000 years ago to the 21st Century. Basically, the author makes the case that the human animal over millennia has combined a "henhouse syndrome," more scientifically known as surplus killing, w/biological first contact where animals do not know to fear humans to head toward extinction or near-extinction. This goes from archaeological evidence of mass killing for only a few choice cuts, which I have read about in Time Detectives: How Archaeologists Use Technology to Recapture the Past to the disruption caused by disease spreading in the 15th and 16th Centuries by Spanish explorers. This is interesting for the early primary sources observing animal density declines with proximity to human settlements, but returns once those human populations were decimated. This is also the first time I recall reading that Little Ice Age is deemed by some to have a root cause in decreased human population. The Stone Age approach to herd management was taken up by more European visitors taking out the bison herds as well as completely eradicating the great auk, passenger pigeon, Carolina parakeet, etc. and wreaking a devastating toll on otters, wolves, etc. and through DDT birds including the national symbol. These are sad and dispiriting histories including a conspiracy theory that wiping out the "buffalo" herds was an American government conspiracy as well as the reckless abandon of the wolfers dispensing cyanide and strychnine causing untold collateral damage.

The author grew up in Louisiana and tells much of Louisiana animals, including how Louisiana alligators went from threatened to thriving. The author is not as hopeful about the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, dismissing all evidence brought forward through September 2021. I am saddened by the implication this includes the video evidence I saw on YouTube.

Overall this is very educational, enlightening even. I am only somewhat disappointed in the narrator.

Using genomic science, evolutionary biology, and environmental history, the author traces the effect of human migration on the ecosystems they moved into. Seeing how many unique species have been lost reminds us of the importance of maintaining the diversity still left. It's a heartbreaking and moving story.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

With a great narrator and an enthusiasm for animal human and fauna Daniel Flores does a great job telling a story and teaching at the same time. With every mention of a people animal or to rain tidbits and facts are given and it is so interesting. I have never read a history book executed with such A flare in original concept. I can honestly say I listen to this book from beginning to end and loved it all. The narrative flows flawlessly and you don’t even realize you’ve already gone several chapters and it doesn’t feel like it. I can’t say enough good things about this great audiobook the original execution and flawless narrative make it oh so awesome I truly loved this book and hope the author writes more like it in the future. I received this book from NetGalley and the publisher but I am leaving this review voluntarily please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.

'Wild New World' is meticulously researched and detailed - and a soul-harrowing experience for it. You need to have a certain mental stamina to cope with listening to this unflinching history of the destruction of biodiversity in North America (and, of course, of cultures and indigenous peoples living there). The audiobook can essentially be boiled down to "This species? Dead. This other species? Dead. And this species? ALSO DEAD". I wanted to punch my fist through a wall during the section on the Ivory Billed Woodpecker.

Very little in this audiobook surprised me, though I appreciated learning more about perhaps more neglected species such as the pronghorn, and the twisting evolutionary history of the horse. That said, the bulk of the book focuses on what happened when Europeans arrived in North America, and I would've loved to linger more in the Pleistocene and pre-Colonial time periods.

Flores' prose is compelling, and he shares snippets of personal experience where relevant, which I appreciated. It isn't exactly mind-blowing, but it does draw together a great deal of up-to-date knowledge about evolution and history in the context of North America. Recommended.

(With thanks to HighBridge Audio and NetGalley for this audiobook in exchange for an honest review)