"When I was a kid, everyone thought that the Pacific Ocean islands had never had many bird species, and that those that had been lost died at the hands of European sailors and their cats, rats and goats. This book shows how wrong we were. The islands once abounded with birds, and their extinction was almost entirely due to the Lapita people. Their ’blitzkrieg’ approach to exploiting natural resources often exterminated most of an island’s larger birds in a century or less. Steadman’s remarkable volume reveals what may have been the greatest vertebrate extinction of modern times."

Adrian Barnett | New Scientist

"Every biogeographer should read this book. To paraphrase Steadman’s words, a kick in the pants is overdue for island biogeography, which is fraught with overgeneralization based on shaky data....Steadman conjures up a tragic picture of seabirds so abundant as to facilitate human navigation to unknown islands, and of islands swarming with landbirds so abundant, tame and flightless that obtaining them for food ’may have resembled our concept of gathering more than hunting’; nothing like the sad remnants we see today. I remember on my only visit to New Zealand, walking through forests and being depressed by the silence, a result of most of the birds being extinct. Steadman shows us that this is the norm throughout the Pacific; an immense avifauna all but gone. We should do all we can to preserve the impoverished remnants."

Alan Tye | Biological Conservation

"[Steadman] provides a natural history account of tropical island bird communities in more detail and depth than ever before, and with great passion and drive. . . . Steadman’s findings will noticeably improve our knowledge on the evolutionary history of island avifaunas and beyond, and they are sure to become a milestone in the progress of island biogeography theories."

Stefan M. Klose | Ecotropica

"It is a great achievement and a valuable resource. . . . Indispensable for any biologist, archaeologist, or palaeontologist with an interest in terrestrial Oceania."

Trevor H. Worthy | EMU-Austral Ornithology

"This will be an exciting book for many audiences: ornithologists, biogeographers, ecologists, evolutionists, paleontologists, conservationists, and anyone interested in island faunas and floras. Though aiming at an academic audience, Steadman superbly captures the adventure of his 25 years of exploring remote Pacific islands. . . . With its exhaustive description of these birds and their biogeography, plus its many insights and about 1,800 references, this is surely now the authoritative work on land birds of tropical Pacific islands."

Daniel Simberloff | Auk