Belonging on an Island: Birds, Extinction, and Evolution in Hawai‘i

by Daniel Lewis

A lively, rich natural history of Hawaiian birds that challenges existing ideas about what constitutes biocultural nativeness and belonging.

This natural history takes readers on a thousand-year journey as it explores the Hawaiian Islands’ beautiful birds and a variety of topics including extinction, evolution, survival, conservationists and their work, and, most significantly, the concept of belonging. Author Daniel Lewis, an award-winning historian and globe-traveling amateur birder, builds this lively text around the stories of four species—the Stumbling Moa-Nalo, the Kaua‘I ‘O‘o, the Palila, and the Japanese White-Eye.

Lewis offers innovative ways to think about what it means to be native and proposes new definitions that apply to people as well as to birds. Being native, he argues, is a relative state influenced by factors including the passage of time, charisma, scarcity, utility to others, short-term evolutionary processes, and changing relationships with other organisms. This book also describes how bird conservation started in Hawai‘i, and the naturalists and environmentalists who did extraordinary work.

Genres: Evolution, Nonfiction, Science, Birds

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2018

About the author

I work as a full-time endowed senior curator of the history of science and technology at the Huntington Library, Art Museum & Botanical Gardens in Southern California—and in a related vein—am a writer, college professor, and environmental historian. At the Huntington, I manage the documentary heritage (rare books, archival collections) related to modern (>1800) history of science and technology, working broadly across the natural and physical sciences.

I write mostly about the biological sciences and their intersections with evolution, policy, culture, history, politics, law, and literature. I hold the PhD in History and have had postdocs at Oxford, the Smithsonian, the Rachel Carson Center in Munich, and elsewhere. My 2012 book (The Feathery Tribe, Yale) was about the study of birds in the late 19th century and what it meant to be a professional after Darwinian evolution provided the mechanism for biological change. My 2018 book (Belonging on an Island: Birds, Extinction, and Evolution in Hawai'i, also with Yale) is an environmental history of extinction and survival among the avifauna of my native state, told in four species; it questions notions of purity among humans and animals. My new book (Twelve Trees: The Deep Roots of our Future) is a conservation and climate change story, published by Simon & Schuster in March 2024. I'm also a consulting author for McGraw-Hill Education's K-7 social studies textbooks. I'm represented by Wendy Strothman of the Strothman Agency in NYC for my writing projects.

Reviews

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Once Lewis pointed out that they are valuable pollinators, I was very happy to feel unguilty about my love for Japanese White-eyes, which some consider invasive. This was a fascinating and important book covering the history of several extinct, endangered, and recently-arriving birds and also of the history of ornithology in Hawaii. Lewis also makes provocative arguments about what belonging means; It feels like these were more sketched out than developed. But then this ambitious book was covering a lot of ground.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a pretty good history of the Hawaiian islands' history via four species of birds, though I dock a star or two for being more about the history of humans studying the birds than the birds themselves. The chapter on the o'o was particularly frustrating, as I was hoping for much more about the birds themselves than the many field biologists who studied them (nothing against field biologists, of course, who are some of my favorite people). The chapters on the palila and white-eye made up for it, though, as they contain some valuable context over recent legal fights pertaining to palila habitat as well as a brief history of the Hui Manu. I'd always wondered why random-ass birds like cardinals and Java sparrows could be found all over Hawaii, and you need look no further than chapter 4 of this book to find out why.

[m c wiggins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sadly I feel this book could have offered so much more than it did. There were too many stories about the people involved and they were all scattered through the book in a jumbled way for me. I would have preferred the pictures to have been about the wildlife mentioned so I knew better what they looked like rather than the people. I do feel the book ended well with the message Daniel wanted to put across clear and resonating with me, but really I wanted that to be what the whole book was about, not just the last 20 pages.

[Mariahmmm · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the definitive book on the history of "nativeness" in Hawai'ian birds, providing a deep dive into the introduction and naturalisation of species from elsewhere (including humans), and the resulting cascade of Hawai'ian bird extinctions.

The book attempts to challenge the concept of "native" and "belonging" but gets stuck in providing too thorough a detailing of the legislation and people involved.

[Daniel Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wrote this book, so I'm somewhat partial to it. It has its warts; there have been some very useful critiques of it over the past several years. I'll extend some of the ideas in this book with another one I have on the runway. It was named by Forbes as one of the 12 best books about birds the year it was published (2018).

[Lance · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent read. Good Hawaiian natural history references and historical view of Hawaiian Ornithology.

[Bradley White · Rating 4 out of 5]

The tragedy of humanity introducing plants and animals, both accidentally and deliberately, to a unique environment and its impact.