Book Description
Finalist for the 2006 Gelber Prize: "A brilliant contribution to the American foreign policy debate."—Anatol Lieven, New York Times Book Review
At a time when America's dominance abroad was being tested like never before, Taming American Power provided for the first time a "rigorous critique of current U.S. strategy" (Washington Post Book World) from the vantage point of its fiercest opponents. Stephen M. Walt examines America's place as the world's singular superpower and the strategies that rival states have devised to counter it. Hailed as a "landmark book" by Foreign Affairs, Taming American Power makes the case that this ever-increasing tide of opposition not only could threaten America's ability to achieve its foreign policy goals today but also may undermine its dominant position in years to come.
Customer Reviews:
fantasy-based.......2007-08-06
I'm going to explain why you should do the environmentally correct thing and not buy this book. To begin, it's pedantic and boring. The author spends several hundred pages explaining why other countries dislike American pre-eminence and how they resist it. Once you've read this, you'll be left with the empty feeling that there's nothing that you couldn't have thought of yourself.
So the first four chapters of the book, the why and how, are not worth reading. If you jump to the fifth chapter, you'll see the author's prescription for how to tame American power. He runs through a number of possibilities, but ends up with what he calls offshore balancing. He notes that this has been America's traditional grand strategy. The problem is that the traditional grand strategy left us with September 11th, 2001. I'm not the first to note that the author does not deal well with the threat that became obvious to the U.S. on September 11th.
But even his reapplication of the grand strategy is based on false premises. Here's a quote. "--- new WMD states will go to great lengths to make sure that their arsenals do not find their way into terrorists' hands. No foreign government is going to give up the weapons they need for deterrence and allow them to be used in ways that would place their own survival at risk." Although not a perfect counterexample, one need only point out the A Q Khan network in Pakistan. Further: "Yet the danger that rogue regimes will give away WMD is extremely remote. After incurring all the costs and risks of obtaining these weapons, would any leader either give or sell them to terrorists when he could not control how the terrorist might use them and could not be sure that the transfer would not be detected?" What repercussions has Pakistan incurred since the revelations that Khan game away its weapons technology to Libya and North Korea? None! Here's another nugget: "Had the Bush administration rejected preventive war in Iraq in March 2003, and chose instead to continue the U.N. mandated inspections process that was then under way, it would have scored a resounding diplomatic victory. The Bush team could claim could have claimed that the threat of U.S. military action had forced Saddam Hussein to resume inspections under new and more intrusive procedures. The U.N. inspectors would have determined that Iraq didn't have any WMD after all." This is utter fantasy; Hussein had rope-a-doped the inspections process for more than a decade. The paragraph within which this is contained contains much more fantasy.
Here's another interesting quote from chapter five: "The United States should not let its post-9/11 concern for homeland security interfere with the continued flow of foreign students to our colleges and universities." Only someone at a university would be foolish enough to make such a blanket statement.
Whether you agree or disagree with current American policy, this book is not worth your time or your dollars.
Learned, Low-Key, Somewhat Disappointing.......2006-10-05
I would not normally have bought this book, but the dogmatic criticisms of the work from what appear to be very angry Zionists compelled me to support the author and see for myself. I can certainly understand their objections: the author provides a very fine overview of how Israel has bonded and penetrated the U.S. Government at all levels including junior staff levels in both Congress and the Executive, and how this, in combination with what I consider to be an unholy alliance with the Christian Zionists (the author names Gary Bauer, Jerry Fallwell, Ralph Reed, Pat Robertson, Tom Delay, and Richard Armey), has shifted U.S. policy between Palestine and Israel from being a balanced peacemaker to unleashing Israel and not holding it accountable. The author is at his best when discussing how to cease our support for Israel if they cannot be sincere in seeking a two-state or shared state solution. The author does not, as far as I could see, discuss the complete failure of the Arab nations to provide support to Palestine where it counts: aid, passports, land rights, etcetera.
On balance I was somewhat disappointed. The book is a tour de force at a very high level, but it is rather simplified, primarily state centric, an executive summary of a great deal of the literature, but missing important slices of the broader literature. Nothing here about the ten threats, twelve policies, or eight challengers.
The author does well at making the point that it is US actions, not US values, that are the catalyst for attacks, and he is quite explicit in discussing how specific terrorists attacks follow consistently from some specific US action in the Middle East. He lists the problems with US Foreign Policy, including double standards, short attention span, historical amnesia, and ambivalence about respect for international law, but there is not as much substance in this book as in, for example, David Boren's edited book on "Preparing American Foreign Policy for the 21st Century"--see my review for an 18 point summary--nor is there the fullest possible discussion of grand strategy. The author breaks new ground in defining strategies of opposition and strategies of accommodation (mostly state-centric) but all things being equal, I think Colin Gray's "Modern Strategy" is better.
The author is at pains to state that pro-Israel organizations, but not most American Jews themselves, egged the Administration on toward the elective invasion and occupation of Iraq. He tries very hard to be politically correct, to the point that the scholarship is weakened--note 97 on page 283, for example, avoids stating the obvious and documenting Greg Palast's "Best Democracy Monday Can Buy" case, i.e. that George Bush stole the Florida election in 2000.
The author touches lightly on the reality that you cannot do public diplomacy using dogma and propaganda--it must be based on substance, and he correctly identifies education as the key--something the Broadcasting Board of Governors not only does not understand, but they are actively keeping their head in the sand while the battle rages over where the Open Source Agency will be (in the spy world or in the diplomatic world).
Just when I thought the author was going to reach a cresendo, after a review of Joe Nye's soft power ideas, stating that no other state is capable of withstanding the full weight of US power, I ended up with a cream pull. No real discussion of how that full weight can be defined and manifested.
See also my reviews of Derek Leebaert's "The Fifty Year Wound," Jonathan Schell's "Unconquerable World," Chalmers Johnson's "Sorrows of Empire," Robert McNamara and James Blight "Wilson's Ghost," Tom Hammes "The Sling and the Stone," and Mark Hertsgaard's "The Eagle's Shadow," among many many other books.
The Taming of the Shrew.......2006-07-20
"'Taming American Power' - Why would one like to do that?" This seems to be the standard tongue-in-cheek reaction one gets from a fellow American student who has spotted the reviewer reading Stephen Walt's latest book. Granted, it is a bit hard to swallow Walt's line of argument at first. As the author, academic dean of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, himself admits, "by virtually any measure, the United States enjoys an asymmetry of power unseen since the emergence of the modern state system." And more than that: It is highly likely that it will remain the most powerful player in the international system for some time to come. So who would go about trying to tie down this omnipotent Gulliver? Walt does a good job in pointing out that reactions from across the world to America's "primacy" position (the author defines this as "being first in order, importance, or authority") are often lukewarm at best - large parts of the population in the Middle East, Latin America, Africa, and Asia do as a matter of fact detest everything the United States stands for. And even seemingly close allies in Europe and Asia look like they have lost their (Cold War-) love for Mr. Big.
But is it just the "rise in the power of [modern-day] Athens and the fear it causes in the world" that makes America so unloved at the present moment? According to Walt, who is a neo-realist at heart but doesn't shy away from making use of other theoretical models on the way, the answer to the question of "why they hate us" is not so much what America stands for, but what it has done in the past, especially ever since the George W. Bush Administration took office in 2001. But his seminal book is more than just one of the many polemics on the current executive. It is a lucid, and often provocative, account of the current problems U.S. public diplomacy faces in the world. It is a profound analysis of the way states deal with American power, something that "has become an essential element of statecraft for every country in the world." More importantly, Walt gives clear recommendations for policy action as well, something that is so often missing from comparable works.
The author starts by shedding light on how the U.S. got into the position it is recently in. How did the "preponderance of power" (Melvin Leffler) come about? Walt attributes geography, shrewd diplomacy, but also pure luck for the unique situation America is in now. Starting with the end of the Cold War (here an analysis of earlier developments such as the Spanish-American War might have brought further insights) Walt goes through the development in the growth of U.S. influence and primacy. He then sets out to analyze the difference in perception the United States has of itself and that other states have of it. Americans and their political leaders are quite often ignorant of the fact that their country is not well liked in other parts of the world. Worse than that: On a regular basis, they simply do not care about other states' opinions. Walt considers the various strategies that states use if they indeed intend to oppose U.S. primacy. Balancing ("soft balancing" with other states or "internal balancing" on their own), balking (foot-dragging), binding (using norms and institutions), blackmail (threatening to take some undesirable action unless the U.S. offers compensation), and delegitimation (portraying the U.S. as morally bankrupt) are the various means that states put to use, very often in combination with each other and during different time periods. Although theses categories have large explanative value per se, it is however not quite clear whether they really cover the entire spectrum of political action. For example, a state could just refuse to hear what the U.S. has to say, thereby falling under none of the above categories.
But what if a state decides to go along with U.S. primacy? According to Walt, it can then either bandwagon (appease), follow a regional balancing strategy (use the U.S. to balance against neighboring states), bond with (establish close personal ties) or try and penetrate American politics (manipulate the U.S. domestic political system). But here, too, other categories seem to exist. A state can for example go along with U.S. policies while at the same time thinking very little of the nation's administration or even its president. The relationship between former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter serves as a prime example.
It is at this point that Walt gets to the heart of his controversial reasoning. He lays out an argument against political pressure groups and ethnic lobbyist movements - in itself not necessarily a new argument. Yet although he also talks about the Indian and Armenian lobby groups, his main thrust is directed against the various kinds of Israeli groups such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA). He blames them for having an undue influence and for pursuing a national interest that is "national" only in Israeli, not in American terms. Yet his argument about the "power of the weak" rings a bit hollow and is only thinly veiled by devoting very few pages to the Indian and the Armenian case. Although Walt rightly states that a solution to the problems of the Middle East is essential to "win the hearts and minds" of the Muslim world and to achieve one of the main objectives of U.S. foreign policy, he walks on thin ice when he makes sweeping statements about the influence of the Israel lobby in the United States such as "Israel is the `gold standard' by which transnational penetration should be judged." Granted, the road for the solution of the Israel-Palestinian problem did not "lead through Baghdad" - U.S. involvement in Iraq turned into a quagmire situation, as Walt rightly points out. But does it really lead through K Street in Washington, D.C.? This seems hardly likely. Lobbies are influential, especially in the United States, but they surely cannot be the sole explanatory variable for why America has so many problems with public opinion in the world.
Bearing these caveats in mind, Walt is at his best when he comes to the actual policy recommendations in the last part of his book. Most importantly, he states, U.S. foreign policy "must be molded with [other states'] reactions in mind." Although this might sound like a truism to European ears, it is something that has not always been at the center of the U.S. foreign policy decision making process. There is hope, however: Consulting with allies and taking their opinions into consideration seems to have been taken up by the current U.S. administration recently - just look at the State Department's new efforts in "transformational diplomacy", increased student exchange and language learning. Walt also makes the important point that the strategy of "pre-emption" - which really is just another word for "preventive war" when the Bush administration uses it - must be abolished at earliest convenience if the U.S. doesn't want to ruin relations with the rest of the world in the long run. For large parts of the global public (especially the European part of it), this seems to be a matter of highest urgency.
The drawback of Taming American Power is that its analysis is extremely state-centered. It is perfectly alright to view states as the principal actors in international relations, but even the most hard-boiled realists will have to acknowledge that the U.S. will increasingly have to deal with non-state actors such as al-Qaeda in the future. Also, Walt seems to be a bit too sympathetic to John Mearsheimer's theory of "offensive Realism" to make it fit with his call for a "mature U.S. foreign policy" that takes the opinions of others into account when pursuing policy goals. It is because of theses inconsistencies that Walt's analysis can only serve as a starting point. But it is a good starting point and leads into the right direction. Therefore, it can be recommended highly.
Methodologically and Substantively Weak.......2005-12-28
Taming American Power is a book about relations between and among states. Walt's starting point is a wide-ranging description of the sources and manifestations of American primacy. Then, in the most insightful part of the book ("The Roots of Resentment"), he does a superlative job of describing the ways that others see America and why their perceptions differ from how we picture ourselves. The following two chapters discuss the strategies foreign governments employ in their relations with an America that is much more powerful than they are. These strategies fall into two broad categories - opposition and accomodation, each of which is broken down into several sub-categories. In the final chapter, Walt sets forth a foreign policy that he believes would be in our national interest.
Neo-Realism In an Era of Terrorism
In my view, Walt has considerable difficulty fitting al Qaeda and other Islamic terror organizations into his conceptual framework. This is probably true for most or all neo-realists. A school of thought that has the balance of power as its foundational principle is ill-equipped to understand a world in which the primary security threat is from transnational, religiously-inspired terrorist groups. For the U.S. or any other country to base a foreign policy on the assumption that al Qaeda will respond to carrots and sticks in the same manner as states would be the height of folly.
Many more states are threatened by al Qaeda and/or al Qaeda-inspired terrorism than by aggression from another state. Given the nature of the threat and the unmatched strength of the U.S. military, balance of power theory, if it is to have any validity in the current era, would have to say that other states would have moved into ever-closer relationships with America in the years since 9/11. Except for heightened behind-the-scenes cooperation within the intelligence community, quite the reverse has happened. The counter-argument is that, as has been shown in several public opinion polls, many populations fear U.S. power more than terrorism - even if their governments do not. It would be absurd for America to assign a greater priority to appeasing foreign publics than to eliminating terrorists.
If al Qaeda and the like were not part of the equation, Walt's thesis - that the Bush Doctrine, because it has intensified anti-Americanism among peoples and governments, and allies and enemies - would have merit. But, not only is al Qaeda part of the equation, it is the most important part of the equation. Given that there is scant evidence that the policies of the Bush Administration has undermined relationships among intelligence organizations, it is far from clear that altering these policies in a manner that would lessen anti-Americanism would aid in the fight against al Qaeda. There may be - and, in my opinion, there is - a trade-off between improving our relations with foreign governments and our overseas approval ratings, and the efficacy of our efforts to defang the Islamic terrorists.
Islamic Terrorism
The most disturbing aspect of Walt's book is that it displays only a superficial understanding of the nature of the threat from Islamic terrorism. He does not mention the jihadis' long-term strategy of re-establishing the Caliphate and shows no evidence of having read Sayyid Qutb and other Islamist authors. Accordingly, he mistakes their tactics for their strategy. Not surprisingly, then, his policy recommendations are ill-conceived and, in my judgment, would facilitate rather than undermine their ability to achieve their objective.
As a result of his misperceptions, he believes that U.S. foreign policy, in general, and American support of Israel, in particular, are the root causes of the terrorists' antipathy toward us:
". . . international terrorists have not attacked the United States or its allies because they are opposed to U.S. values, or even primarily because they are worried about U.S. power. Instead, they have targeted the United States because they oppose its global military presence and the policies that presence is supporting." (p. 87)
"Although bin Laden is sometimes critical of American culture, his actions throughout his career have been inspired primarily by opposition to the specific policies of particular states . . . Indeed, bin Laden emphasized in October 2004 that he and his followers were not at war against "freedom," which is why they did not strike countries like Sweden." (p. 85)
"U.S. Middle East policy is one of the main reasons why terrorists like Osama bin Laden want to attack the United States . . . Even worse, America's tacit (and, at times, active) support for Israeli expansionism makes bin Laden and his ilk look like prophets and heroes rather than murderous criminals." (p. 234)
". . . if the United States can portray those who use terrorism as criminals driven largely by a selfish desire for power, then a terrorist campaign is likely to fail." (p. 138)
In addition to not appreciating the nature of the threat, he appears to underestimate its severity and potential impact on the U.S. How else can these words be explained?
(...)
The United Nations
Walt is a multilateralist with a high regard for the UN. Commenting on the run-up to the Iraq war, he says that
"America's opponents [in the Security Council] sought to prevent the use of force in this particular instance, while simultaneously strengthening the authority of the UN system." (p. 146)
There is an alternative perspective that I share: by not authorizing the use of force to punish a serial violator of Security Council resolutions, America's opponents weakened the UN, setting it on the same path as the ignominious road followed by the League of Nations.
(...)
As to winning the War on Terror, he believes that the necessary and seemingly sufficient condition is for the U.S. to lay it on the line with Israel:
"If the United States wants to win the war on terrorism, it must find a way to reverse the steady deterioration of its standing in this critical part [the Middle East] of the world . . . the United States should use its considerable leverage to bring the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to an end, [which includes pressuring Israel] to withdraw from virtually all territories it occupied in June 1967, in return for full peace. If Israel remains unwilling to grant the Palestinians a viable state . . . the United States should end its economic and military support . . . The United States will still support the continued existence of a Jewish state (the same way that we support a Norwegian state, a Thai state, a Polish state, etc.), and it would be prepared to help if Israel's survival were threatened." (...)
Bad advice.......2005-12-25
One reviewer of this book said that this book was a "recipe for appeasement" and that were the world to recommend genocide, or a return to slavery, that this book would imply that this ought to be America's policy! Well, is that reviewer right about this book?
After reading the book, I think the reviewer is right.
The author makes the point that opponents of the United States try to delegitimize us. He's right; they do. But the response to this ought to be to do what is best, not to appease our enemies. Appeasement generally makes matters worse for everyone. I think if we have the ability to support truth, justice, human rights, peace, and prosperity, we ought to do so, even if it may sometimes mean battling thugs and tyrants.
The portion of this book that I'm best able to judge is about Israel. I'm a Pagan and a Zionist. And the author does a bad job of describing America's informal alliance with Israel. He somewhat exaggerates the strength of the Israeli lobby here, and in addition, he makes it appear somewhat sinister, as if it were causing America to support policies that are against our own interests. In fact, it is very difficult for small nations to convince us to act against our interests. It is far easier for small nations to agree to do what we say (in an attempt to become or remain our allies) or for small nations to benefit from getting our support when America's enemies attack them.
Yes, the Israeli lobby has done well, but the main reason for this is that it has an excellent product to sell! Israel is a nation which is being attacked by some reactionary and racist thugs and tyrants. The nation most slandered by the United Nations and the international community is Israel. No wonder plenty of decent people find it easy to support it. The Israeli lobby isn't needed to convince most American opponents of all this slander and aggression. Walt does not mention any of this, of course.
There is a big difference between being in favor of human rights for all and supporting all policies of the State of Israel. Walt certainly agrees. But he implies that American Zionists tend to support the latter, not the former. And that's not true at all. There's plenty of opposition by Zionists to specific Israeli policies, and it is an anti-Zionist untruth to say that one can't object to Israeli government policies without running afoul of the Zionist lobby. Such excuses are often used by those who deny Israel's right to exist (presumably in order to deny human rights to Levantine Jews) and then try to say that they merely disagree with some policies of the Israeli government. In addition, Walt fails to discuss the extent to which some American Jews disagree not only with Israeli policies, but even with the idea that Israeli Jews ought not be denied human rights.
Walt implies that Israel wants "to impose an unjust solution unilaterally" to its dispute with the Arabs. That's ridiculous. If there is peace, Israel wins: it gets to stay on the map and prosper on land it is making excellent use of. That's why Israel is willing to put up with a solution which cheats the Jews out of land they would otherwise be entitled to keep or purchase. It is anything but unjust to the Arabs to let Israel have less than its fair share of land! Or to allow human rights for all the people of the region!
The author also comes up with the taunt that denying Arabs "their legitimate political rights has not made Israel safer." That's outrageous. There is no legitimate right to dissolve a neighboring nation and get rid of the human rights of its people. And it does not make one "safer" to agree to get rid of one's human rights, quite the contrary. He's simply blaming Israel for the aggression and slander against it.
At one point, Walt even asks "why should other Arabs believe that the United States is committed to freedom when its money and power are used to deny these rights to millions" of Levantine Arabs. Well, I think that there are plenty of flaws with American foreign policy. However, in my opinion, we deserve quite a bit of praise for supporting human rights in the Levant. We could do better. But if we take the author's advice, we'll be doing much, much worse.
I do not recommend this book.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Washington Monthly, published by Thomson Gale on December 1, 2005. The length of the article is 1762 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: New balance: what other countries can do about American power.(On Political Books)(Taming American Power: The Global Response to U.S. Primacy)(Book Review)
Author: Jonathan Clarke
Publication:
Washington Monthly (Magazine/Journal)
Date: December 1, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 37
Issue: 12
Page: 37(2)
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
This digital document is an article from The National Interest, published by Thomson Gale on March 22, 2006. The length of the article is 4504 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Strategic horizons.(American Global Strategy and the "War on Terrorism")(New Glory: Expanding America's Global Supremacy)(Taming American Power: The Global Response to U.S. Primacy)(The American Era: Power and Strategy for the 21st Century)(Book review)
Author: J. Peter Pham
Publication:
The National Interest (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 22, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Issue: 83
Page: 121(8)
Article Type: Book review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Customer Reviews:
A Creepy Book , You Better Run and Hide Cause They're Coming!!! .......2007-03-07
Melanie and Cameron Doyle go camping in the wild at Mount Shasta when they see the biggest bird in North America, the California Condor. These birds don't attack people, but this Condor WANTS to attack people. And Cameron and Melanie discover something different about these Condors attacking them, but you have to read the book to find out!! This book is really good and you should read it.
Average customer rating:
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California Condors (Returning Wildlife)
John Becker
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ASIN: 0737722924 |
Book Description
California condor populations began to decline when Europeans arrived on the Pacific Coast in the seventeenth century. By the 1980s the surviving handful of condors were removed from the wild and bred in captivity. Since 1992, captive-bred condors have been successfully reintroduced into the wild in California, Arizona, and Mexico.
Book Description
Ten thousand years ago, the California condor's shadow raced across the rock faces of canyon walls throughout the Southwest, but, over time, the majestic condor disappeared from this land-seemingly forever. Last seen in northern Arizona in 1924, the California condor was on the brink of extinction. In the early 1980s, scientists documented only twenty-two condors remaining in the wild, all in California. Thanks to a successful captive-breeding program, their numbers have increased dramatically, and dozens now fly free over northern Arizona and southern Utah.
Sophie A. H. Osborn's groundbreaking book, Condors in Canyon Country, tells the tragic but ultimately triumphant story of the condors of the Grand Canyon region. A natural storyteller, Osborn has written an in-depth, highly personal narrative that brings you along as the author and other condor biologists struggle to ensure the survival of the species. The book's kaleidoscopic photographs of these huge birds flying free over the Southwest are nearly as breathtaking as seeing California condors live. The only book of its kind, Condors in Canyon Country is a must-read for anyone passionate about endangered species and what humankind can do to save them.
Book Description
The California condor
has been described as a bird
"with one wing in the grave."
Flying on wings nearly ten feet wide from tip to tip, these birds thrived on the carcasses of animals like woolly mammoths. Then, as humans began dramatically reshaping North America, the continent's largest flying land bird started disappearing. By the beginning of the twentieth century, extinction seemed inevitable.
But small groups of passionate individuals refused to allow the condor to fade away, even as they fought over how and why the bird was to be saved. Scientists, farmers, developers, bird lovers, and government bureaucrats argued bitterly and often, in the process injuring one another and the species they were trying to save. In the late 1980s, the federal government made a wrenching decision -- the last remaining wild condors would be caught and taken to a pair of zoos, where they would be encouraged to breed with other captive condors.
Livid critics called the plan a recipe for extinction. After the zoo-based populations soared, the condors were released in the mountains of south-central California, and then into the Grand Canyon, Big Sur, and Baja California. Today the giant birds are nowhere near extinct.
The giant bird with "one wing in the grave" appears to be recovering, even as the wildlands it needs keep disappearing. But the story of this bird is more than the story of a vulture with a giant wingspan -- it is also the story of a wild and giant state that has become crowded and small, and of the behind-the-scenes dramas that have shaped the environmental movement. As told by John Nielsen, an environmental journalist and a native Californian, this is a fascinating tale of survival.
Customer Reviews:
A Near Death Experience.......2007-07-07
If cats have nine lives, then the California condor as a species must be their equal. These birds have stepped to the edge of the extinction cliff and ALMOST fallen to a crushing collapse. After reading their story, you have to wonder if the creator was playing a cruel joke on this ancient and giant bird. First, with the exception of the huge black body and their graceful soaring, they aren't what you would call "easy on the eyes." They have a number of disgusting habits, and to top it off, they settled on Southern California as home (i.e., this place is being consumed by development at an alarming rate).
Condors to the Brink and Back - covers this bird's life history all the way to the release of zoo raised birds into the wilds of California and Arizona. With each chapter that John Nielsen writes in their life history I felt like, "Okay, this is it. These birds aren't going to survive this one." In the end, the species (read: humans) which puts them against the ropes, is ultimately the same species which comes to their rescue. Nielsen introduces all the key players in what at times resembles a less-than-unified effort to save the mighty condor.
Nearing the end of the book, what becomes apparent is man's role as the crutch the fragile condor must lean against to survive. As more condors raised in captivity are released into the wild, their dependency on wildlife biologists and zoo care-takers can begin to crumble. Encouraging news about California condors breeding and fledging new birds in their natural habitat is happening with greater frequency and spreading over a wider range including Mexico.
Their longer term survival looks brighter and brighter. But some of the threats that put these birds on the brink of collapse are still present today in the form of lead pellets and bullets in downed game which the condors ingest and the ever shrinking range land which they inhabit. For the time being, we have the California condor back to grace our skies, and play an important role as one of nature's big body snatchers.
Everything Condor.......2006-06-03
This is a really interesting book. Nielsen writes very well, and with an evident passion arising from his boyhood experiences with condors in southern California. Nielsen tells the story of the condor, what little we know of its history before the nineteenth century, the slaughter of the birds and the stealing of its eggs, and finally the sometimes comical efforts to save this profound species from extinction. The book is equally appealing to readers who are simply seeking a good story, and to those who are involved in other kinds of environmental protection efforts.
One particular part of the story surprised me. Nielsen interviewed Sandy Wilbur, the government biologist charged with developing a plan to save the condor immediately after the Endangered Species Act became law in 1973. According to Nielsen, Wilbur became a Christian after reading a book by C.S. Lewis, and it was his Christian beliefs that influenced his desire to preserve the condor. Wilbur believed that the condor was special because it was created by God, even though the bird had long outlived its evolutionary significance and was not necessary for any current ecosystem. This is a different kind of motivation for saving biodiversity, and the story is a nice complement to the many other individuals who have struggled to save such a memorable bird.
How one large bird journeyed to the very edge of extinction and came back makes for an exciting story.......2006-05-26
How one large bird journeyed to the very edge of extinction and came back makes for an exciting story: especially when related by a NPR environmental correspondent as in CONDOR; TO THE BRINK AND BACK - THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ONE GIANT BIRD. Here is where passionate reporting blends best with science, producing a moving story of how a small group of committed people refused to allow the condor to become extinct, joining forces to gather the last remaining wild condors to a pair of zoos where they were encouraged to breed with other captives. John Nielsen is a native Californian as well as an environmental writer, so he's in the perfect position to provide a survey of both California environmental politics and processes and natural history in this compelling account.
Diane C. Donovan, Editor
California Bookwatch
Informative and a lot of fun to read.......2006-04-02
John Nielsen has clearly done his homework when it comes to understanding the fascinating history of the California Condor. He not only takes us through the natural history of condors from the Pleistocene to the present, he also introduces us to the remarkable cast of characters who have worked diligently for almost a century to prevent this species from disappearing. Written in an easy, engaging style, "Condor" combines ecology, history, and gossip to create a vivid picture of the challenges involved in saving a species that was more at home in the age of the mammoths than in the age of McMansions.
The Return of the Condor.......2006-02-28
American condors are not an easy bird to love, at least for many people. Their points of unattractiveness are many. The condor is a vulture, a creature that eats dead and rotting things by sticking its bald, red, ugly head into carcasses. When it needs to cool its feet, it urinates on them. Its sense of interior design for the caves in which it nests is to decorate the walls with feces and vomit. John Nielson, in _Condor: To the Brink and Back - The Life and Times of One Giant Bird_ (HarperCollins) admits to all this ugliness, but says the images vanish when the bird takes flight: "You may think there's no chance you could ever give a damn about this bird, but take my word for it: once you see the condor soaring, it owns you." The birds have inspired a great deal of fervent enthusiasm, which has of course pitted enthusiasts against such types as farmers and developers, but has also divided those who want to save the birds into warring factions when they disagree on the fundamentals of how to do so. The condor has survived, but even Nielsen admits it has long been a species with no ecological value. It has survived, barely so, despite its involvement with humans and now directly because of them.
The birds are amazing in many ways. They are one of the largest of flying birds, with a ten foot wing span. The finger-like feathers at the end of those wings are almost two feet long. As big as condors are, they were small scavenger birds compared to some of the others 1.6 million years ago in the Pleistocene, when they would have fed on mammoths, sloths, and saber-toothed cats. As Nielsen says, we'd pay plenty to get mammoths and saber-tooths back; what's it worth to keep an animal with the same history? Condors started being afflicted by humans who wiped out different mammalian species in the mid-1700s, and then by hunters who left their prey full of lead, and then by strychnine used to poison varmints, and then by collectors of their feathered skins and their eggs. By 1982 there were only about two dozen left. A great deal of basic research had to be done on the birds to get real understanding of how they lived. It was not until the 1980s, for instance, that it was learned by chance that condors are among the birds that "double clutch," laying a second egg in a season if they lose the first one. This meant that one egg could go to the zoo without making the flock smaller. Crews of condor-fanciers wore themselves out tagging condors in the wild or collecting the eggs; they called themselves "The Zombie Patrol" because as they staggered to the condor nest caves they were "filthy, smelly, bleeding, starving, stiff, and utterly exhausted." Eggs brought back (in a special padded suitcase) were hatched in the zoos. A program of simply tagging and releasing birds in the wild did not work; eventually all the last birds wound up as captives.
There has been enough success in captive breeding that condors raised in pens have been released into the wild. No one really can predict how this will go. Chicks raised this way are often fed by hand, or at least by hand puppet, a covering for a hand that looks very much like an adult condor head coming down with food in its beak. This was supposed to let chicks sense that they were in a condor family, but one keeper said, "It only took the chicks a few days to figure out that there were people behind the puppets." Wild birds do not need to be thinking of people as a source for nutrition (or for any other blessings, given how we have treated them). There was a program of "aversive therapy" to keep them from being too affectionate to or curious about humans, and another to teach them not to land on power lines. There are important philosophical issues here; are such birds raised so unnaturally really natural members of the environment, and what is it that we have gotten for the millions that have been spent to get them back in the air? If you only count numbers, there are about a hundred condors flying free now, which is a real success, although some biologists think this only shows how badly we have failed to keep the environment a place where condors could continue to make their homes independently. Perhaps it is only appropriate that this strange bird, hideously ugly in appearance and fabulously beautiful in the skies, should bring out the best and the worst in us, and that its unresolved story should be filled with ambivalent messages.
Customer Reviews:
Condor's Egg.......2001-04-20
This book contains beautiful illustrations. The minimal text is motivational for children who are discouraged by pages filled with words. However,the vocabulary is not easy and is definitely not for a beginning reader without support. Very informational.
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California Condor, The (Endangered in America)
Alvin Silverstien
Manufacturer: Millbrook Press
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Binding: Library Binding
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ASIN: 0761302646 |
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Endangered Animals and Habitats - The Condor (Endangered Animals and Habitats)
Karen D. Povey
Manufacturer: Lucent Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Board book
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ASIN: 1560068647 |
Book Description
Since the end of the last Ice Age, condors have faced the perils of a changing environment, ultimately declining to the very brink of extinction. In a combined effort by zoos and government agencies, biologists are working to resurrect the California condor through a controversial captive breeding and release program.
Customer Reviews:
A Compelling Story.......2001-07-22
A well-researched and excellent addition to the series. Keep them coming! The author shows an understanding of the many problems confronting the condor and writes in an easy-to-read, well-organized format. Students and adults will find this a compelling story. School libraries will find this book to be a valuable resource for science and conservation classes. The reader will be left with the desire to follow the future of the condor with interest.
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California Condors (True Books: Animals)
Patricia A. Fink Martin
Manufacturer: Children's Press (CT)
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Northern Spotted Owls (True Books: Animals)
ASIN: 0516274708 |
Book Description
As the largest flying bird of North America, and one of the most endangered, the California Condor has been a source of tremendous interest and awe. This book offers up-to-date information on both the biology and conservation of the condor, as analyzed by the two most knowledgeable field biologists to have studied the species. The authors present first a thorough review of the history of condor studies and conservation efforts, then a detailed examination of the biology and recent decline of the species, and finally a hopeful plan for ultimate restoration of the species as a viable member of wild ecosystems. The book is illustrated with over a hundred superb color photographs covering numerous aspects of natural history of the species and recent conservation efforts on its behalf. Conservation of the California Condor has always been highly controversial, and this book does not shrink from controversy. Instead it offers a broad and insightful, but nevertheless sympathetic treatment of the many political conflicts of the past century.
Key Features:
- Reviews historical account of condor biology and conservation
- Analyzes nest site characteristics and limitations
- Studies breeding behavior and analyzes breeding effort and success
- Discusses mortality rates and the causes for their decline and efforts to improve reproduction
- Discusses the techniques, problems, and results of captive breeding and release programs
Customer Reviews:
The landmark work on the California condor.......2000-06-20
Noel and Helen Snyder have done an incredible job, of capturing the history of the condor, its biology and much of the essence of the politics of high-profile endangered species recovery. While this meticulously researched book that will fulfill a scientist's needs for accuracy and detail, they have managed to relate that information with a personal touch that provides the lay reader with the sense of the adventure that the authors are recounting. They have tiptoed through a political mine field to bring out the stories and facts so necessarily missed or mis-understood by the media and distant observors. While many books are available on the condor, not since Carl Koford's work in the 50's has someone so close to this species told its story.
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