'The Life of Mammals' by Sir David Attenborough

Title: 'The Life of Mammals'
Author: Sir David Attenborough
Genres: Non-Fiction, Natural History
Publisher: BBC Books, London, 2002

In 'The Life of Mammals', Sir David Attenborough takes us to all corners of the globe to understand mammals and explore their diversity, evolution, and amazing adaptations. Throughout the book, he examines species after species, revealing their unique natural histories while extrapolating broader mammalian characteristics from these specific examples.

The book successfully tackles a grand problem: the description of a group of animals so diverse as mammals in a way that illustrates both their commonalities and their peculiarities.

The book and the 10-part television series of the same name that it accompanies, were released by the BBC in 2002. 'The Life of Mammals' is part of Attenborough's acclaimed 'Life' natural history series, a series that began in 1979 with 'Life on Earth' and has since been expanded by other extraordinary works that include 'The Life of Birds' in 1998 and 'Life in the Undergrowth' in 2005.

The aim of the book is set forth in Attenborough's introduction:

Our relatedness to mammals makes it easy for us to empathize with them. We can imagine the feelings of a cow suckling her new-born calf, of a lion lazily lording it over his pride of lionesses, of a couple of chimpanzees grooming one another, even perhaps of a whale when it communicates with another across the vast distances of an ocean basin...The aim of this book is to amplify that instinctive understanding by examining the logics and processes that have moulded the bodies of mammals over the last hundred million years, and so enable us to comprehend the extraordinary efficiency and diversity of the mammals, the most complex and diverse of all animals on earth. ~ Sir David Attenborough, 'Life of Mammals'

The chapters of the book mirror the ten parts of the television series 'The Life of Mammals', with each chapter focusing on an aspect of mammalian life that has enabled them to enjoy widespread success:

• A Winning Design
• The Insect Hunters
• Chisellers
• Plant Predators
• Meat Eaters
• The Opportunists
• Return to the Water
• Life in the Trees
• The Social Climbers
• Food for Thought

'The Life of Mammals' reflects Sir David Attenborough's enthusiasm, expertise, and sparkling narrative style. It is superbly illustrated and expertly researched, continuing in the top-drawer tradition of Attenborough's other natural history works.

'The Life of Mammals' is not a reference book to be read in splintered attempts, dipping in and out of the text for facts and figures. Instead, it is a book best read from beginning to end so as to benefit from the complex natural histories it describes and the eloquent style with which it is written.

The book occupies an important place in natural science writing. It provides a captivating insight into an entire class of animals while encouraging readers to observe individual creatures with enthusiasm and curiosity to see how they fit within the context of their environment and evolutionary history.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about mammals. It provides a broad overview of this class of animals while investigating individual species in detail to illustrate the characteristics that make mammals such a unique and fascinating group of animals.