The Dodo: From Extinction to Icon

Rarely have humans ruminated so much about so little, as in the case of the dodo. As amateur naturalist Fuller points out in this precise, charming and beautifully illustrated volume, of all extinct beasts none, except perhaps a few dinos, grip the imagination like the chubby, swan-sized, flightless bird (a type of pigeon in fact) that Europeans first encountered on its island home of Mauritius, in the Indian Ocean, in 1598, and that was gone forever only 90 years later (a victim most likely of European predators both human and animal). Today all that remains of the dodo are some bones, a ravaged foot and head, and a few primary accounts and illustrations. Yet the dodo is wildly popular, mostly as an ""icon of extinction,"" first spurred to prominence, Fuller explains, by Sir John Tenniel's illustrations for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and now the subject of dozens of books, fiction and nonfiction, its image and name attached to nearly every type of object (from tea towels to notepads to houses); yet ""genuine dodo literature...is characterized by its remarkably poor scholarship."" Fuller rectifies that flaw here, explaining exactly what we do and don't know about the dodo, and reproducing important primary material, both words and pictures, as well as a handsome selection of secondary material. This is the fourth book Fuller has written about extinct birds (The Great Auk, etc.); with its smart, informed text, wealth of illustrations (200 color), very reasonable price and terrific subject, it's liable to be the most popular yet.