What do You think about Under A Wild Sky: John James Audubon And The Making Of The Birds Of America (2005)?
This is a fascinating biography of Audubon, as well as a riveting history of America. Newly printed by Milkweed Editions, Under a Wild Sky is a must-read for lovers of birds, science, and life in the 1800s. Souder, who is an award-winning author, has written a lushly detailed book that is a joy to read especially due to the mind-blowing amount of research he did that affords the reader the chance to really know what it was like to live during the early years of our nation. My only regret is that I won't ever get to see some of these birds in the wild. Thankfully, we have Audubon's prints to admire.
—Diane Prokop
It is our good fortune that the members of today's eponymous society of bird lovers do not follow the "birding" methods of John James Audubon. During his life he sent great numbers of our feathered friends to an early end. For, while most early Americans hunted to feed themselves, Audubon went well beyond hunting for survival and felled birds in great numbers to skin, disect, stuff and paint them, or mail them off to curious friends. Sometimes, by his own admission in his voluminous notes, he shot them just for the hell of it. On one occasion he bemoaned the fact that his gun jammed after killing only two pelicans, when he intended to kill a lot more.But he was a man of his times, and it was common for farmers to blast away at flocks of Carolina Parakeet until no more were in sight. The Passenger Pigeon was similarly devalued and massacred, with the result that those two lovely species were soon extinct.To his credit, Audubon found the practice of wholesale buffalo slaughter repulsive and refused to take part.Aside from the above, the book is a fascinating biopic of the man and his times, and of the tribulations he and his wife endured in bringing to fruition his beautiful master work "The Birds of America." It also lays bare the historic roots of the atavistic behavior still witnessed in many Americans... hunting for 'fun.'
—Ronald
