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Article: Island Africa.
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- March 30, 1991
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1991 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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A BOOK of great beauty, jonathan Kingdon's ISLAND AFRIA* is ostensibly about why certain animals and plants live in certain parts of that continent. But scientists are impressed by the way Mr Kingdon has identified the sequence of evolutionary accidents that led to Africa's strange mosaic of rich ecosystems; and conservationists find in it a way to explain rarity and extinction. Most people will simply revel in the pictures. Mr Kingdon can draw anything, from a diagram of a skinned agwantibo to a magical collage of Namaqua flowers.
This is a book that marries the old tradition of the explorer-naturalist with that of a modem scientist. Mr Kingdon, who has lived in ...