Davis...makes clear in his rollicking, poetic, wise new book that cultural and political history are an integral part of this natural history, not to be omitted if we want to tell the whole story.

Davis’s most surprising contribution is to show how adulation of the natural world can accelerate its destruction. We came very close to loving the bald eagle to death.

... an impressive work of scholarship by Mr. Davis.

Davis is a superb natural historian with a lyrical feel for the eagle's world—its quirks, its habits and its extraordinary survival skills. He sketches vivid portraits of the artists, scientists and eagle-loving eccentrics who thought nothing of perching in a tree for weeks to document eagle life. These character sketches do overstuff the narrative, which might have been better served by focusing on fewer outsized personalities. Still, this is an extraordinary and fundamentally optimistic story, and it sends a message we need to hear, as we face the formidable environmental challenges of the 21st century..

Gliding on prose as majestic as his subject, Pulitzer Prize-winning environmental historian Jack E. Davis conveys the breathtaking splendor of the most famous American bird in The Bald Eagle.

Though the organization of the book is puzzling, The Bald Eagle is compelling and paints a dignified portrait of the famous bird, within and outside of American culture. The author’s occasional playful tone lightens the mood during its darker moments and even helps to underline the hypocrisy of the treatment of this bird of prey, simultaneously esteemed and maligned.

The Bald Eagle: The Improbable Journey of America’s Bird is a feel-good story. That is, once you’re done feeling pretty darn awful about the way Americans treated these living symbols of national greatness throughout much of the country’s past.

This fascinating and readable work will appeal to fans of the majestic bald eagle and to those interested in the natural, cultural, and political history of the United States..

Davis’ unique look at a bird we all thought we were familiar with is well-researched and chock-full of fascinating historical and nature-oriented vignettes..

[A] sweeping history of America’s unofficial symbolic bird. Combining natural, political, and cultural histories, Davis offers a wealth of surprising information and demolishes popular misconception.

A majestic history.