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A review by urbanheron
Living Planet: The Web of Life on Earth by David Attenborough
informative
relaxing
medium-paced
3.5
I really enjoyed the way this book takes you on a tour through all the major ecosystems on Earth with each chapter flowing nicely into the next, making for a relaxing read. I also really liked the way that convergent evolution was illustrated by describing the animals that carry out the same role or look alike in similar ecosystems on different continents. The highlights for me were the sections where Attenborough switches to the second person to describe the full sensory experience of exploring a particular habitat; I really felt transported reading these parts.
This is a re-release of a book from 1984 - that explains the more old-fashioned language which sometimes came across
The weakness of this book for me is its very surface level attempts to weave in information about indigenous people to relevant chapters (eg. people of the Amazon in the rainforest chapter). I don't think enough attention was paid to updating these parts for the 2017 re-release (the book was originally published in 1984). I'm not the best person to comment on the appropriateness of how indigenous people were described, but the lack of in-depth knowledge of, and input from, the relevant groups was obvious.These sections are few and short so easy to skim over.
This is a re-release of a book from 1984 - that explains the more old-fashioned language which sometimes came across
The weakness of this book for me is its very surface level attempts to weave in information about indigenous people to relevant chapters (eg. people of the Amazon in the rainforest chapter). I don't think enough attention was paid to updating these parts for the 2017 re-release (the book was originally published in 1984). I'm not the best person to comment on the appropriateness of how indigenous people were described, but the lack of in-depth knowledge of, and input from, the relevant groups was obvious.These sections are few and short so easy to skim over.