Island Africa: The Evolution of Africa's Rare Animals and Plants

Rating:
Summary: This is a great book for turning people on to nature
Review: This is one of my all-time favorite books. It is not heavily scientific, but it packs quite a bit of information into a small space. Kingdon treats Africa as a series of ecological islands, each with their own history, geography, geology and organisms. The brilliance of this work is the incredible, original artwork, which Kingdon uses to illustrate his points. Kingdon is an excellent artist with beautiful work, but scientists also appreciate his art because of how he puts so much information into his pieces. In summary, it's a great way to look at Africa, it's a great way to get turned on to ecology, and I've often wished that somebody would do the same kind of thing for other parts of the world.