Dodo: A Brief History [Hardcover]

Errol Fuller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 18, 2003

"Dead as a dodo." We think not! The dodo may long be extinct, but its presence in our culture and hearts lives on.

Our knowledge of the dodo as an actual living creature may be limited, but in popular culture it is one of the best known creatures and rands with tigers, penguins, elephants, and dinosaurs as an animal that most children will recognize. Lewis Carroll's inclusion of the dodo in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and certainly Sir John Tenniel's infamous accompanying illustration of Alice and the dodo, forever elevated this curious bird to fantastical status. From cartoon characters to the very icon of extinction, the mythology surrounding the dodo has grown to universal celebrity.

From personal accounts from travelers to the Island of Mauritius, to the bird's prominence in literature and the arts, this droll presentation is the most comprehensive illustrated guide to an intriguing inhabitant of natural history and the arts.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

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.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Scientific American

Sailors from a group of Dutch ships that reached the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius in 1598 found dodo birds in considerable numbers along the coast. Forty years later the species was all but gone there, and by 1690 it was extinct everywhere. Fuller, a British painter interested in curiosities of natural history, tells the dodo's story with grace and many intriguing illustrations. Hard facts about the dodo are minimal. The bird was "a gigantic, flightless pigeon" with a massive beak, a large head and a tuftlike tail. But its exact appearance is uncertain because drawings made while it still lived are contradictory. Written accounts are "as tantalizing as the pictures." Having set out the few facts, Fuller goes on to describe the dodo's popularity in literature--and to give it an epitaph as "the ultimate symbol of what can go wrong when man and nature come together."

Editors of Scientific American

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Universe (January 18, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0789308401
• ISBN-13: 978-0789308405
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 8.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,724,688 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A vapid performance, March 11, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Dodo: A Brief History (Hardcover)

Visually this book is stunning. Informative it is. But if you found a book about dinosaurs that said "we know almost nothing about them, except that there are no dinosaurs today" would you be interested? This is how Fuller starts his commentary on the dodo - "We know almost nothing...." dodos equal famous dinosaurs. The moral of the whole book is, "here are the facts but we don't really know and we can't either so there". In its attempt to be critical and parsimonious, it trips over itself in a mess of contradictions (was the Dodo grey or brown? - "it seems to have been greyish though Saftleven clearly shows the head was brown")and a script that reads like watery thin soup.

The fact of the matter is, there is a lot of background interest in the Dodo and this book does not dare to speculate on various assumptions and models that have been made of the Dodo. For example that it may have shed the tip of its bill, that it produced chicks every 2 years or on any differences between males and females of a specific nature. The paintings of the Dodo are not discussed critically in terms of authorship and attribution or history. We don't get to hear about where a few dodos were sent alive and how they contributed to paintings. The map of Mauritius does not clearly mark the spot where lots of dodo skeletons turned up and the general distribution of dodos. Fuller leaves us guessing if dodos lived on the interior of the island or coasts and whether it was a forest or shore type bird.

In the end, the book is more like a log of evidence and we are left to pick out our own picture for ourselves. The author has very little conscious, critical or thought provoking to say. There is too much on dodo paraphanelia/souvnirs as well.

It is in fact more disappointing than his other books on extinct birds like the Great Auk. A lot more could have been said and done. This book remains a vital reference on the Dodo with holes, unapologetic omissions and scientific coyness.

Its price is good and it remains a reference - on the dodo, the Solitare and the mysterious "White dodo" though there isn't much of a story here.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Beautiful History of Extinction's Emblem, May 16, 2003

By 

R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dodo: A Brief History (Hardcover)

"As dead as a dodo." Everyone knows the phrase (and it is far clearer than the obscure doornail variant). The dodo is universally acknowledged as a symbol of extinction, not just a dead bird, not just a dead species, but an emblem of wipeout. Although everyone knows the dodo, we know almost nothing about it. It was discovered and wiped out long before the days of scientific observation. Errol Fuller has told us just about everything there is to know about the bird in _Dodo: A Brief History_ (HarperCollins). It is not as big or lush a volume as the one he produced on another goner, the great auk, but it is beautiful and fascinating.

The facts about the birds are slim. They came from the small island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. They were actually large pigeons. They weighed more than fifty pounds, according to an observer from 1634. They had ridiculously small wings that were a parody of flight. We don't know what they ate, what they sounded like, or how they mated. "But of one thing we can be sure," he writes, "There are now no dodos." Europeans arrived on Mauritius when the Dutch navy landed in 1598 (there had been transient visits by Portuguese and Arabs before then), and only fifty or so years later, there were no dodos. The dodo had no predators before encountering humans, so it had slipped into a flightless existence, and also did not flee when approached. They were easy prey. After the bird's extinction, no one much cared about it. In 1755, there was exactly one stuffed dodo. It was within the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. It was in such a decrepit state that it was consigned to the flames. The head and right foot alone were saved, and "these pitiful fragments" still exist and have been used for DNA samples. Of course they are depicted here.

After more than a century of oblivion, Fuller explains that one simple event caused "... the general public to take notice of the dodo, and the bird itself to enter the ranks of universal celebrity." In 1865, Lewis Carroll published _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_, with an episode of the "caucus race" which the dodo decides "Everybody has won, and all must have prizes." Prizes, he also decides, have to come from Alice herself. Sir John Tenniel illustrated the episode, with his image based on first-hand depictions. Fuller explains that the dodo, like the book, "... was suddenly in vogue and - again just like the book - it has never since been out of it." Dodo poems followed, and "Dodo" as a nickname for girls, dodos on teapots, tea towels, stamps, coffee mugs, advertisements, table service, and more. We will never forget the dodo. Fuller's handsome, beautifully illustrated volume of all this dodo lore helps in the cause of dodo remembrance. It is throughout good-humored, and in accord with its subject, it is peculiar, funny, and sad.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Decent Reference to Everything Dodo..., February 28, 2006

By 

Andy Proctor "andysartery.com" (Santa Barbara, CA United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Dodo: A Brief History (Hardcover)

As past reviewers have mentioned, this book is visually stunning. A very good entry level book to give a historical background on records, sketches, semi-factiods, and assumptions. Fuller makes it very clear (time and time again) that everything we think we know about the dodo is based on written records or sketches. Fuller also points out that we don't have complete facts on the legitimacy of any of the accounts. For example, some written accounts were taken from a boat that traveled by the island...the accountee not even stepping foot on the island. Furthermore, the recognizable paintings may or may not have been created from a live specimen, but a taxidermied version which may have been overstuffed. The book is a quick read, allowing the reader to form their own view and create their own image of what they belive the dodo once was. I recommend merely as a collection of visual reference and general historical accounts.