Tudge Dances Through Time in explaining the movements of continents and the impact of that mobility on life forms. Movement, an adventure life normally avoids, is forced by changes in environment. In seeking to stay with the familiar, life migrates in response to change. With environments continually shifting, life must adapt to survive. Humans have broken the pattern, invading the globe's many environments. We are the most adaptable species to emerge.

The price of our adaptation has been the extinction of many species, particularly large prey animals and birds. On every continent large birds and mammals ceased leaving fossil remains shortly after the appearance of Home Sapiens on the scene. The timing is too consistent to be purely coincidental and the ensuing patterns of human behaviour show we remain essentially ignorant of our impact on Nature's balance. We shouldn't be surprised at his finding. Today we face decimated cod and salmon populations. Whales remain under assault in the face of a 'moratorium' on their killing. The number of populations exterminated due to our occupation of their habitat is beyond counting. Tudge's concern is valid and it must be hoped infectious given the background he provides.

Those who grizzle about Tudge being "wordy" are misleading you. He's precise with words, although this book must set some kind of record for superlatives. New readers take note: Tudge has one disturbing habit. He will introduce a term [edentates, for example] and never find an alternative thereafter. When you encounter a term you don't know, make certain you understand it before continuing. This habit detracts neither from the worth, clarity of presentation nor value of this fine book. At first read the lack of a Bibliography seemed a flaw. Second thoughts showed that a suggested reading list would likely have doubled the size of the book. Build the bibliography yourself as you encounter authors and titles in the text. If the citations are unfamiliar to you, spend the energy. Tudge is too good an introduction to the topic to ignore. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]


best survey of early human extinctions that i have saw.   April 25, 1999
 1 out of 3 found this review helpful

A book worth reading if intrested in anthropology.

Tudge starts out with a Good review of mammalian evolution hard to find in its detail discussing population ranges and the advantages/disadvantages of big mammals for survival.

The best part of the book is the overview of the extinction theory which proposes that it was not climate change. but human impact that brought so many species to extinction at the end of the ice age. Tudge goes into great detail on this citing evidence on all continents.

The final chapter is also intresting dealing with how humanity can survive the enviromental damage done to the earth and survive as a species.

A good read.


Recommended for understanding of humanity's impact on nature   October 13, 1998
 3 out of 4 found this review helpful

This book is engagingly written and enlightening in its content. Its object, to expand our perspective on the history and the impact on the planet of our genus Homo from its beginning about 5 million years ago, could hardly be more timely. Tudge integrates knowledge from the disciplines of geology, anthropology, archaeology, climatology, and even game theory to provide a framework for understanding.

I like his clear explication and illustration of evolutionary principles and mechanisms, in particular his emphasis on the unifying concept of the ecomorph: the outcome of the process by which evolution fits organisms to ecological niches. I like his courage as a non-expert to suggest that the idea of progress may have some usefulness in evolutionary thought. Similarly, Tudge reminds us that whereas Lamarck's fourth law on the inheritance of acquired characteristics should be rightly rejected, his second law, that the production of new organs results from continued environmental pressure in a particular direction, can contribute much to understanding of evolutionary history.

In sum, I recommend this book because it accomplishes what it sets out to do and makes a start on an answer to the ant in the cautionary tale called "Ant Research" to be found in the book "The Magic Monastery" by Sufi savant Idries Shah:

It took a certain scholar a lifetime of experiment before he could communicate with an ant. The one he eventually found was a very wise and very ancient insect; but at the risk of causing it pain, the scholar said: 'Our species is immeasurably superior to yours. We study you, and yet you cannot even begin to observe us.' The ant said: 'If you, poor man, only knew about yesterday, you would understand today - and also be prepared for tomorrow.' The scholar confessed himself confused by such statements, so the ant continued: 'Millions of years ago, we ants worked out what was going to happen on this earth. We knew that your species would come and ruin almost everything. So we did the only thing open to intelligent beings with complete information. We destroyed the data and forbade the breeding of ants who would understand, organizing ourselves in special colonies. Now and again we have a throwback - an ant who can see our miserable and irreversible fate. But untold myriads of heedless ants are happy; and will be so, until our time comes. That is the solution for ants. You humans, on the other hand, you have not even reached the stage when you know what may happen to you; and whether or not there is anything you can do about it.'


Read this book!   December 27, 1997
A valuable and intellectually exciting overview of "how the world works." Includes plate tectonics, climatology, and evolution, with a review of human evolution. Interesting and provocative ideas about extinction. Actually provides a different and persuasive point of view of our current, desperate situation. Unnecessarily detailed and quite tedious review of various families (orders?) of vertebrates, which I skimmed and skipped at will (another reviewer bestowed special praise on this section, however). Well worth reading, with the above caveat. Regrettably lacking in references. Alan Nicoll


Book will change your perspective   May 18, 1997
Exciting, fabulous, fascinating subject that changed my perspective about everyday people, persons and things. How many "history" books can you say that about? This book presents the history of our species in an easily understandable story that is stranger than science fiction; two enthusiastic thumbs up