Customer Reviews

The Malay Archipelago

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Although the author himself says he is no writer, he is patently wrong - this book is full of wonderful descriptive, poetic passages, which underline this charming man's love of nature and dedication to the truth of scientific study, as opposed to the accepted 'truths' of the day.

An interesting insight into the groundwork that helped to develop the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection, it also compares the British and the Dutch methods of colonisation, and controversially comes out on the side of the Dutch - against all current (and our received) perceptions of the Dutch as ruthless, money-grubbing opportunists.

Wallace was also unusual in using geographic and geological features combined with population spreads (human & biological) to support the new theories of continental drift and a world older than the Biblical model.

I'm lost in adsmiration for the way he managed to survive depravation, lack of company, housing, support, money and produce the finest collection of birds and insects that the world had ever seen; make comparative studies of the linguistic traits of all the major tribes; keep a detailed diary of all his travels ... all this in a known area of cannibals and head-hunters with only 3 or 4 assistants and he the only white person for hundreds of miles. Compare this to other explorers like Richard Burton who needed an entourage of several hundred for all their 'essentials'.

This book is a very readable profile of an enignatic Victorian naturalist at a crucial period in scientific history - would that I could have met him!

"The Malay Archipelago" is Wallace's most celebrated book. It went through fifteen editions during his own life alone, and has been translated into every major language (and a number of minor ones). It is clearly one of the greatest scientific travel books ever written, both for its well-constructed survey description of the region in question, and for its scientific value to the professional naturalist. Wallace spent eight years in Indonesia as a natural history collector; during this period he collected an incredible 125,000 specimens, carried out the first important field studies on the orangutan and paradise birds, clarified the ethnology of the region, discovered the faunal discontinuity known now as 'Wallace's Line,' was one of the first Europeans to take up residence for an extended period on the island of New Guinea, founded the modern approach to biogeographical analysis, and last but not least arrived upon the theory of natural selection. Today's casual reader will be troubled a little here and there by lists of Latin names of plants and animals, but this is a minor distraction from the telling of one of history's greatest feats of natural history investigation.

This book deserves credit for giving an incredibly detailed account of Indonesia, especially the Moluccas/Maluku, as seen in the 19th century.
As a travelogue it is a fascinating read.
It WAS also a great scientific work at the time it was written.
However some of its conclusions are now understandably a bit dated (though many others are still valid), while description of the local people, viewed from a position of European superiority, certainly wouldn't find acceptance today. Even failed and highly repressive Dutch colonial policies are given a sympathetic treatment by Wallace.
Unfortunately, having become such a classic, some of the dated conclusions of this book are still being reproduced in new works published about this region nowadays, nearly 150 years later!
So I would say that while this book is certainly worth reading as an account of how things were in Wallace's time, one should never forget when it was written. I gave only 3 stars to remind people of this - otherwise 4 or 5 would be justified.