Attenborough, David

Life in the Undergrowth

ISBN: 0691127034
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005. First American Edition. Hardcover. "We are greatly prejudiced by our size. We find it difficult to believe that an animal that is many times smaller than ourselves can have anything in any way comparable to our own motives, or to experience anything that resembles our basic emotions of fear and hunger, let alone aggression or sexual excitement." (from Foreword, pg. 7). Life in the Undergrowth is English broadcaster, natural historian & writer Sir David Attenborough's (b. 1926) companion volume to his five-part BBC television series of the same name. It is a richly illustrated survey of terrestrial invertebrates - the insects, spiders, worms, millipedes, snails, and their relatives that make up the overwhelming majority of animal species on land that usually escape human notice. Within Attenborough's long sequence of landmark natural-history surveys, Life in the Undergrowth was the fifth specialised study and, importantly, the one that finally filled the invertebrate-shaped gap left by his earlier work on birds, mammals, plants, and life on earth more broadly. Advances in macro photography (specialised probe lenses, motion-control rigs & careful lighting) allowed the production to film genuinely tiny animals behaving naturally, at a scale & intimacy that simply hadn't been achievable before. That technical leap is the heart of the series' & books' legacies. It expanded what wildlife film was thought capable of showing, and the techniques and ambitions it normalised fed forward into later "small-world" and macro-heavy natural-history photography. Life in the Undergrowth is a piece of advocacy disguised as a coffee-table book. Invertebrates are routinely dismissed as creepy, trivial, or merely pests, and Attenborough's framing deliberately reverses that, treating a wasp colony or a courting snail with the same narrative gravity he'd bring to a lion or an elephant. That rehabilitation of the overlooked is arguably the book's most influential contribution, and it anticipates the more explicitly conservation-minded, "every creature matters" tone that runs through his later work. An elegant Azure Damselfly (Coenagrion puella) graces the front cover, even though the insect is listed as a praying mantis at copyright page. Hardcover in unclipped Dust Jacket: First American Edition though not explicated as such at copyright page, first printing per number sequence thereon. A most collectible Photography/Entomology book from the legendary Attenborough, the most widely recognized voice in natural history. Book in relatively very fine condition with very mild shelf-wear to fine edges & corners of front, back covers & spine; very mild scratching to top/side text block. Interior very fine with an occasion of mild spot-staining to blank front endpage; very mild age-toning mostly to blank margins-fine edges of first few page leaves. Dust Jacket very fine with mild rubbing to front, back covers & spine; mild wear to fine edges of same including flaps; mild-to-moderate scratching to back cover. Very Fine / Very Fine. [Item #9041]

Price: $60.00 save 10% $54.00