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Sebastian Ritscher

THE BALD EAGLE

Jack E. Davis

The Improbable Journey of America's Bird

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Gulf, a sweeping cultural and natural history of the bald eagle in America.
The bald eagle is regal but fearless, a bird you're not inclined to argue with. For centuries, Americans have celebrated it as "majestic" and "noble," yet savaged the living bird behind their national symbol as a malicious predator of livestock and, falsely, a snatcher of babies. Taking us from before the nation's founding through inconceivable resurgences of this enduring all-American species, Jack E. Davis contrasts the age when native peoples lived beside it peacefully with that when others, whether through hunting bounties or DDT pesticides, twice pushed Haliaeetus leucocephalus to the brink of extinction. Filled with spectacular stories of Founding Fathers, rapacious hunters, heroic bird rescuers, and the lives of bald eagles themselves - monogamous creatures, considered among the animal world's finest parents - The Bald Eagle is a much-awaited cultural and natural history that demonstrates how this bird's wondrous journey may provide inspiration today, as we grapple with environmental peril on a larger scale. Jack E. Davis is the author of the award-winning The Gulf: The Making of An American Sea and An Everglades Providence: Marjory Stoneman Douglas and the American Environmental Century. A professor of environmental history at the University of Florida, he lives in Florida and New Hampshire.
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Published 2022-03-01 by Liveright

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Combining natural, political, and cultural histories, Davis offers a wealth of surprising information and demolishes popular misconceptions... Well-timed humor... keeps things moving, and his writing is vivid... This account soars. Read more...

...engaging and highly detailed cultural and natural history of the unofficial national bird... Davis deftly brings alive the bald eagle as a real animal, separate from both the myths of its rapaciousness and the symbolic majesty Read more...

Feature: The Dump Is Probably the Best Place to Spot the Once-Endangered Bald Eagle (Yes, Really) - In his new book, Jack Davis details how there have been two kinds of bald eagles throughout American history: the symbol and the living bird. Read more...

[A] soaring new book... The Bald Eagle is compelling and paints a dignified portrait of the famous bird, within and outside of American culture. The author's occasional playful tone lightens the mood during its darker moments and even helps to underline the hypocrisy of the treatment of this bird of prey, simultaneously esteemed and maligned. This is a history that turns the tables on Americans; the creature that embodied the scrappiness of the early nation is now a model of resilience we can only hope to emulate. Read more...

A majestic history of the bald eagle... consistently lively, captivating narrative celebrates the naturalists, scientists, activists, artists (Andy Warhol, among them), politicians, and breeders who have championed the extraordinary 'charismatic raptor.' A rousing tale of a species' survival.

It is both a treasury of bald eagle eagle trivia (...), and a comprehensive account of the eagle's role in American history... More importantly, Davis has documented America's love-hate relationship with the bald eagle... Davis' account of this magnificent predator's fight to live side by side with its fellow Americans is a great read.

An impressive work of scholarship...if you have any questions about our national bird, Mr. Davis's The Bald Eagle is a great place to look for answers. Read more...

Davis' unique look at a bird we all thought we were familiar with is well-researched and chock-full of fascinating historical and nature-oriented vignettes.

This fascinating and readable work will appeal to fans of the majestic bald eagle and those interested in the natural, cultural, and political history of the United States. Read more...

Davis is a superb natural historian with a lyrical feel for the eagle's world - its quirks, its habits and its extraordinary survival skills. He sketches vivid portraits of the artists, scientists and eagle-loving eccentrics who thought nothing of perching in a tree for weeks to document eagle life... An extraordinary and fundamentally optimistic story, and it sends a message we need to hear, as we face the formidable environmental challenges of the 21st century. Read more...

Why did Americans nearly drive America's bird to extinction? In The Bald Eagle, Davis, who won a Pulitzer Prize for The Gulf, a clever history of 'America's Sea,' has written a double biography: a history of the species and a history of the symbol... The Bald Eagle is the rare natural history that plays as a comedy. It's a dark comedy, however, because its lessons are not easily transferable to our broader, ongoing ecological catastrophe. The bald eagle is not only a symbol of American might. It is a symbol of American exceptionalism...A moving portrait of a species victimized for its own evolutionary successes. Read more...

Interview with Jack Davis Read more...

Splendid... [Davis] is a meticulous historian and researcher as well as a master storyteller an irresistible combination. Read more...

On Eagles' Wings: PW Talks with Jack E. Davis Read more...