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Remains of a Rainbow: Rare Plants and Animals of Hawaii | 
 enlarge | Authors: Susan Middleton, David Liittschwager
Creators: W.s. Merwin, David S. Wilcove
Publisher: National Geographic
Category: Book
Buy New: $31.91
New (4) Used (8) from $20.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 732039
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 264
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3.5
Dimensions (in): 12 x 10.9 x 0.7
ISBN: 0792262468
Dewey Decimal Number: 333
EAN: 9780792262466
ASIN: 0792262468
Publication Date: October 1, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New. Delivery is usually 5 - 8 working days from order, International is by Royal Mail Airmail
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Book Description
Renowned natural history photographers David Liittschwager and Susan Middleton have devoted the last decade to capturing images of endangered plants and animals in the United States. Remains of a Rainbow, their groundbreaking and unprecedented coverage of the Hawaiian Islands, transforms these statistics into living beings with faces, unique characteristics, and beauty, through vivid and poignant photographic portraits. With more than 300 images, this splendidly vibrant volume will be showcased in traveling museum exhibitions over the next three years at major natural history venues. Remains of a Rainbow focuses on the native species that have evolved on the islands of Hawai'i, one of the biologically richest places on Earth, and also one of the most threatened. Working closely with expert field biologists, Liittschwager and Middleton capture images of ecosystems full of new discoveries (species not yet known to science), rediscoveries (species thought to be extinct), and the exotic habitats in which these species fight to survive. The text and elegant photographs tell a powerful story—of the rare creatures of the world, of little-seen habitats in the wild, of human interference that threatens their survival, and of the people who devote their lives to preserving them.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
 Beautiful Book January 19, 2007
We first saw the hard-back version of this book in the museum on the island of Kauai. We thought it was a wonderful hardback book, but the museum tols us that it could cost $150.00 and was no longer available in any form. Luckily we found it on Amazon in soft cover (which is more than adequate) and for much less money. Truely a beautiful and informative book!
 Pretty pictures but don't trust the text November 8, 2006
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
The pictures of rare Hawaiian plants and animals in "Remains of a Rainbow" are pretty.
Pretty uninformative. And the text is largely nonsense.
The tipoff is "rich volcanic soil." When you see that in a book about Hawaiian natural history, you know right away that the author made no effort to learn his subject.
Just a few paragraphs away, we run into a rhapsody about the ancient Hawaiians' respect for the "unity and balance of the natural world." Large, slow, tasty birds excepted, of course.
The text by photographers David Liitschwager and Susan Middleton (assisted by Maui poet W.S. Merwin in an ill-informed introduction) is the verbal equivalent of kudzu -- an exotic, boring growth that smothers the interesting natural stuff underneath. Green goo.
It is understandable why the sponsors of "Remains" -- Environmental Defense and the National Geographic Society -- pander this way. It is not so easy to sell Hawaii's endangered plants and animals on their merits. After all, you and I are not likely ever to encounter most of them.
Which raises a question: If none of us is going to meet them except in the pages of a book, why bother to preserve them in nature? A small herb that was never known to exist until three or four years ago, and which was down to maybe five or 10 individuals then, is not going to alter the islands' ecosystem if it disappears.
One answer to that question is the last word in this book, taken from the writings of the late Maui biologist Wayne Gagne: "We are in pursuit of environmental quality, an ethical stance where our native biota is concerned, and for accepting each natural ecosystem on the planet for what it is . . . each a unique result of multifaceted ecological processes, past, present and continuing."
Fine words, but Liittschwager, Middleton and their sponsors obviously do not believe they can sell them. So instead of marketing Hawaii for what it is -- a unique place -- they peddle the ecological situation here, which is grim enough in fact, as part of a crisis "of declining biodiversity worldwide."
This is the "sixth great extinction" argument, one of those resilient popular ideas for which there is little evidence. People holding such views can find themselves in paradoxical situations.
Middleton, who blows the tin horn of mass extinctions louder than Liittschwager, writes about how after 15 years of working with endangered species, none she had encountered had yet gone extinct. Until Clermontia peleana.
But it turns out that while Clermontia peleana, a Big Island plant, probably is extinct in the wild, it is not yet quite extinct from the Earth.
Middleton does not seem to find any contradiction in simultaneous belief that the world is in the midst of the biggest extinction crisis in 65 million years and the fact that even a specialist in endangered species has yet to encounter one that passed on.
Considering that outsiders Liittschwager and Middleton had the cooperation of dozens of Hawaii's best biologists, they could easily have done better.
For one thing -- and this is another tipoff that the writers have not done their homework -- if they had listened to local experts, they would not have made such a big deal of Hawaii's biological diversity. To call islands with no amphibians, no reptiles, no pines and no ants diverse is perverse.
Instead of revealing and reveling in Hawaii's strange status -- its untypical ecological situation makes it the greatest natural laboratory of evolution -- Liitschwager and Middleton went for the picturesque and shallow.
Their pictures are gorgeous but don't tell much. They mostly were shot against solid backgrounds and display only a part of the organism. There is little hint of how each species functions within its community.
The misleading text of Liittschwager and Middleton is somewhat corrected by thumbnail descriptions of the 142 species illustrated, which were written by local authorities and are reliable.
"Remains of a Rainbow" represents the work of years, with the combined support for publishing from Environmental Defense, the National Tropical Botanical Garden and The Nature Conservancy of Hawaii; along with the on-the-ground help of NTBG, Maui Land & Pineapple Co. and other public-spirited groups.
In an afterword, David Wilcove, senior ecologist of Environmental Defense, writes that the survival of species in desperate straits will rely on "above all, public education."
"Remains of a Rainbow" is so far from contributing to public education that readers will end up knowing less about Hawaii after reading the book than they did before.
 Don't get me wrong..... January 18, 2006
Now don't get me wrong. This is a wonderful book with beautiful photographs of Native Plants and Animals of Hawaii. The only thing wrong with the Softcover version is that the cover creases so easily. So if you want this book for your own personal library the Hardcover version is preferred. But if it is used as it is meant to be, as a coffee table book, than this is the book to have.
WOW, WOW, WOW, WOW February 25, 2003
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
WOWS on every page. I gave this book to my Mother and Aunt for X-Mass. I wanted one for myself but ran out of cash (dag nab it) This is one of the most AMAZING nature books ever. If you need some brownie points give this as a gift, it will keep you out of the Dog House for YEARS.
Spectacular Photographs April 28, 2002
This book contains some of the most spectacular photographs you've seen. Close-ups even a pro would seldom come close to. It's unlikely you'll see many of these in your travels, but it feels like your walking through a Hawaiian tropical jungle as you page through the book. Many of the pages would look great framed for your walls. This is the perfect coffee table book, all of my friends have picked it up and marveled over the interesting plants and flowers, even the non-gardeners.
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