The Reef, A Passionate History

March 31, 2014
This lively, detailed, and unabashedly Eurocentric history of the interaction between navigators, castaways, scientists, and the Great Barrier Reef tells a story of place through the biographies and first-person accounts of the notable individuals who have encountered the Reef. McCalman (Darwin’s Armada) delivers the facts with a deft blend of Robinson Crusoe–like adventure tale, hearty sea shanty, and society gossip rag. The dozen stories start with James Cook’s 1770 “discovery” of the massive coral structures around New Holland, move through William Kent’s 1880s research projects as the first “scientist-photographer” (which gave the Western world an understanding of the Reef’s beauty), and reach the present day as coral expert Charlie Veron tells the Royal Society that greenhouse gases are killing the reefs—“the canaries of climate change”—and acidifying of the oceans. While McCalman briefly acknowledges Aboriginal Australians—as travel companions on a BBC-funded recreation of Cook’s voyage—the indigenous point of view is notably missing, with the native people of Australia only described through outsider reports as noble savages or fearsome cannibals. Though McCalman successfully brings his exploring protagonists from the historical record into life, the choices of stories this piece tells lean unnecessarily toward colonialist exoticism. B&w illus.

May 1, 2014
The history of the Great Barrier Reef told through the stories of men and women who have loved or hated it, lived there, studied it, exploited it or tried to save it.McCalman (History/Univ. of Sydney; Darwin's Armada: Four Voyages and the Battle for the Theory of Evolution, 2009, etc.) loves the reef and fears for its future. His account begins with Capt. James Cook, whose ship Endeavor ran aground there in 1770 and who feared being trapped and destroyed in the labyrinth of coral reefs. Some three decades later, while exploring the reef, Royal Navy officer Matthew grasped its immensity and named it the "Great Barrier Reefs." In the 1840s, the naturalist and geologist Joseph Jukes wrote glowingly of the area's beauty and accurately of the culture of the indigenous people living there, contrary to fictitious accounts of cannibalistic savages. In one fascinating chapter, McCalman recounts the tale of a young Scottish woman who survived a shipwreck and was taken in by Aborigines. In the 1890s, the British scientist-artist-photographer William Saville-Kent studied the reef intensely for four years, producing a masterpiece that showed the world the wonders of its underwater world. In 1908, Australian E.J. Banfield's The Confessions of a Beachcomber presented it as multiple island paradises, and the 20th-century attempts of America zoologist Alexander Agassiz to disprove Darwin's theory of the origin of coral reefs made it the center of scientific interest. McCalman then focuses on two Cambridge scientists whose publications in the 1930s ignited the interest of tourists and inspired the actions of men and women determined to save the islands from exploitation. McCalman's final chapter, sadly titled "Extinction," introduces Charlie Veron, an authority on coral reefs, whose message is that forces already underway are destroying the Great Barrier Reef, a message that the author bravely, hopefully attempts to counter in the epilogue.McCalman selects his subjects judiciously and writes with flair, creating a multifaceted portrait of one of the world's great wonders.

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March 15, 2014

Combining engaging accounts of early explorers with discussion of current scientific findings and their implications, McCalman (history, Univ. of Sydney; Darwin's Armada) presents the 430-mile-long Great Barrier Reef of Eastern Australia and the threats to its existence. He categorizes three types of people who have shaped our attitudes to the "greatest marine environment this planet has ever seen"--Western explorers and scientists, indigenous peoples, and beachcombers inspired by the reef's beauty. McCalman presents passages from the writings of various naturalists extolling the diversity of reef flora and fauna, outlines the geological history of the area, and describes the chemical and biological aspects of coral formation. The establishment of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (1976) was a triumph of conservation groups over the interests of economic, tourist, and industrial development constituencies. Alarming increases in temperature and light penetration over the last decades, bleaching, cyclones, pollution, and an uncontrolled crown-of-thorns starfish population, however, have caused half the coral to be lost. VERDICT While James Bowen's The Great Barrier Reef: History, Science, Heritage is a comprehensive, scholarly monograph covering the same topics, McCalman's book will be enjoyed by the general reader, students at the undergraduate level, those interested in the history of science, and travelers to this magnificent region.--Judith B. Barnett, Univ. of Rhode Island Lib., Kingston

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2014
Flat-out astonished when he first set eyes on the Great Barrier Reef in 2001, British historian McCalman (Darwin's Armada, 2009) quickly became concerned about all that imperils the ongoing vitality of this gigantic maze of coral structures and magnificent marine world, especially global warming. Now his mission is to illuminate the reef's glorious complexity by recounting the stirring, wild, and surprising stories of fraught encounters between islanders and outsiders. He begins with vivid accounts of Captain James Cook's nearly disastrous reef collision in 1770, followed by the 1802 expedition of Matthew Flinders, the true European father of the Reef. Here, too, are beachcombers, artists, a tropical Thoreau, and shipwrecked Barbara Thompson, a nineteenth-century Scotswoman who lived for five years among the Kaurareg people. McCalman also profiles intrepid scientists who advanced our knowledge of reef-building corals and their role in this precious ecosystem, a World Heritage site, from naturalist Joseph Beete Jukes to scandal-evading William Saville-Kent, a pioneer in marine science photography, to today's ardent reef advocate, Charlie Veron. McCalman's passionate history is a call to save this fragile global wonder. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

June 1, 2015

The author explores the history of Australia's Great Barrier Reef, one of the world's environmental treasures. Although it was believed that the establishment of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park in 1976 would protect the resource indefinitely, climate change is increasingly threatening the area's future. (LJ 3/15/14)

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.