Silenced Rivers: The Ecology and Politics of Large Dams.

enlightening even to an advanced reader (me) who thought she knew all about these things. He describes the contributions of key figures from Joseph Hooker to Ernst Mayr and uses wonderful examples, such as the discovery of the dawn redwood, a living fossil. Throughout the book, he seems able to present these ‘‘textbook’’ illustrations of biogeographic principles (the dodo, the passenger pigeon, the Hawaiian fruit flies) without making them seem ho-hum. It is mainly in the final chapters that I found a few errors of explanation or fact (being a typical academic, I can not let these nitpicky things go without mention). For example, humans established permanent settlements first, and then, over time, domesticated plants and animals (not the other way around, as it is usually taught). Also, the Polynesians did not arrive and settle the Pacific islands after the Lapita peoples— they descended from them. But these are small points. More central to the book’s subject, I wish MacDonald had been more critical of vicariance biogeography, or at least spent more time on phylogeography and on tying the topic of evolutionary history back to the chapter on dispersal (another one of my favorite topics). I was glad that he accorded the equilibrium theory of biogeography (ETB) a small section in the penultimate chapter, ‘‘The Geography of Biological Diversity,’’ which is where I think it belongs. Some folks seem to equate the ETB with biogeography, so I am pleased that MacDonald wrote 427 pages about biogeography (and talked about islands several times in the context of dispersal, evolution, endemism, and extinction) before he mentioned island biogeography. Even then, he talks about Darwin, Wallace, Carlquist, Hooker, Gleason, and Mayr before MacArthur and Wilson. He accurately describes the ETM as perhaps the most well-known theoretical concept to arise from biogeography in the twentieth century, and he goes on to outline the theory, its evidence, and the growing body of evidence that does not support it—lack of species turnover or extinction on islands that cannot be attributed to humans, and lack of equilibrium between species immigration and extinction. He reviews the biotic and historic factors that lead to nonequilibrium—all species are not equivalent, humans cause waves of extinctions when they occupy islands, evolution and speciation also generate biodiversity on islands. He concludes on a decidedly historical note: species additions and extinctions on islands are best examined over thousands to millions of years, species turnover may be very slow (if it occurs), and equilibrium may never be achieved in the life of an island. He proposes these as ‘‘modifications’’ to the ETB—probably a fitting tribute to the theory’s brilliant authors, and consistent with his even-handed treatment of controversies in the subdiscipline throughout this textbook. Perhaps by the time MacDonald writes the second edition someone will have noticed that the emperor has no equilibrium, and the ETB will have been replaced by something more useful and for which there is empirical evidence. MacDonald’s final chapter, on biogeography and conservation, provides a brief overview of geographical approaches to conservation planning and includes topics from GIS, gap analysis, and population-viability analysis to ecological restoration and the challenge of global warming. This is a lot to cover in one short chapter; hopefully, it provides some nice links to the rest of the geography or biology student’s curriculum. Glen, I’m sure your family is happy to have you back, but thank you for writing this book.