THE FEATHER WARS

America’s avian history.

McCommons, an environmental and travel journalist, writes, “When looking at the century-long fight to save America’s birds, it’s important to remember the victories.” While the book is full of birds being driven to extinction, skinned and feathered, and “blown to bits,” it’s really the story of the United States’ slow victory in keeping its diverse array of birds alive. The book opens with the story of early “shotgun ornithologists”: Without adequate binoculars in the 19th century, the only way to study birds was to shoot them down and examine their corpses. From the difference between Native American hunting bows and Jamestown settlers’ clumsy muskets to the contemporary threat of reflective high-rise windows, the book can be read as a history of the U.S. through birds, as, oddly enough, one can’t fully be told without the other. For example, readers may be surprised to learn that a landmark Supreme Court decision about “whether federal law supersedes state law” was originally brought to court over how to enforce the Migratory Bird Act. The author’s historiography is also current—he doesn’t shy away from the fact that James Audubon financed his successes by selling enslaved people, and he focuses on the impact of lesser-known female ornithologists such as Florence Merriam. His prose shines, as when recounting massive flocks of passenger pigeons darkening the sky for hours in the 1850s and ’60s: “Pigeons…spooked horses, impelled children to run for home, and caused the pious to drop to their knees in prayer. The throb and rush of air from beating wings went on all day while excrement fell like a snow, frosting the streets and buildings.” If the book stutters, it’s because it may be too comprehensive—readers may feel bogged down when McCommons zeroes in on not just bird hunters, but the middlemen who sold birds, or when he repeatedly returns to the subject of feather hats.

A definitive history of bird conservation in America.