the Napoleonic Wars, is omitted, but is to bepublished by the Hakluyt Society.

This selection,then,helps to restore to themap of late eighteenth-century and earlynineteenth-century intellectual life a figuretoo long absent and a great master of the artof letter-writing. It offers a glimpse of thelong-submerged epistolary riches that pro-vide such insight into the character of aremarkable individual and his age. ■

John Gascoigne is in the School of History,University of New South Wales, Sydney 2052,Australia.

Mastermind of the bird world Erwin Stresemann (1889–1972):Life and Work of a Pioneer ofScientific Ornithologyby Jürgen Haffer, Erich Rutschke & Klaus Wunderlich Deutsche Akademie der NaturforscherLeopoldina: 2000. 465 pp. (German withEnglish summary). DM68, 34.80 euros (to beordered through G. Thieme Verlag, Stuttgart)

Matthias Glaubrecht

Ever since Charles Darwin and Alfred RusselWallace strove to solve the ‘mystery of mys-teries’, the question of the origin and natureof species has been paramount for evolu-tionary biologists. Long before the ‘evolu-tionary synthesis’ became the theoreticalumbrella for systematics, genetics andpalaeontology in the 1940s, two of its Ger-man architects, Ernst Mayr and Bernhard

Rensch, were both guided by one man —Erwin Stresemann — who was pre-eminentin establishing many of the principles onwhich modern ideas of species are based.

Given Stresemann’s paramount contri-bution to transforming the old typologicaland stagnant concept of species into thedynamic concept of biospecies (as one ofmany currently discussed species concepts),it is surprising that little information waspreviously available on his life and scientificwork. The gap is now filled by this well-researched account of both the scientific andpersonal aspects of Stresemann’s long andoutstanding career, by three authors who,independently and at different times, cameto know him.

Klaus Wunderlich, who examined Stre-semann’s scientific legacy in the Staats-bibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz in Berlin,provides the biographical information,while Erich Rutschke shows Stresemann theman. Most of the book comprises a descrip-tion and analysis of Stresemann’s scientificwork and achievements by Jürgen Haffer, anexperienced taxonomist, ornithologist andhistorian of science. An appendix containspreviously unpublished extracts of manu-scripts, including an unfinished manuscriptfrom 1952 on the historical development ofsystematic knowledge on birds of paradise,one of Stresemann’s lifelong obsessions, andletters that supplement the correspondenceof Stresemann with Mayr and otherornithologists that was edited by Haffer andpublished in Ökologie der Vögel in 1997.

Streseman was not only an eminent birdsystematist and one of the most outstandingornithologists of the twentieth century, butalso a charismatic biologist who was one ofthe founders of the ‘new systematics’ in zool-ogy during the 1920s. He was educated at theUniversity of Munich, and by the age of 24had already made an expedition to theMoluccan Islands (1910–12), published several articles on their bird life and beeninvited to write the ornithological contribu-tion to Willy Kükenthal’s famous Handbuchder Zoologie. With his later masterpiece, theseminal and lasting volume of the Aves(1927–34), Stresemann initiated the trans-formation of avian taxonomy into a branchof modern biological science, thereby layingthe basis for a ‘new avian biology’.

Appointed a curator of the Berlin NaturalHistory Museum of the Humboldt Universi-ty in 1921, Streseman established a school ofyoung ornithologists. The Second WorldWar abruptly ended this successful traditionin German natural sciences. The museumwas left trapped behind the Iron Curtain inEast Berlin, making it impossible for Stresemann to resume his leading position inornithology. Nevertheless, in him the unityof German ornithology survived during thisperiod, mitigating the separation of Easternand Western scientists.

As Mayr later generously acknowledged,he owed to Stresemann the idea of reproduc-tive isolation as the defining property ofspecies,which later proved most valuable fordefining biological species in Mayr’s 1942and 1963 accounts. From 1914 onwards,Stresemann also discussed geographical isolation and small population sizes asunderlying factors in speciation, thusfavouring what later became known as theallopatric model of speciation. In the 1920sand 1930s Stresemann synthesized a bal-anced view of historical and ecological fac-tors long before vicariance biogeography asthe systematic analysis of distributional pat-terns became the dominant perception.

The book is an affectionate account ofStresemann’s career.But it is not silent abouthis overly conservative and pessimistic attitude, from the 1950s on, resisting mod-ernization in the delimitation of bird taxaand becoming theory-hostile to the natureof species and the systematic relationsbetween bird orders.

To anyone interested in the developmentof scientific ideas, the book offers an absorb-ing insight into the remarkable biologist’slife and his leading role in ornithology andbioscience when the latter was still a holisticdiscipline.Particularly,we should be indebt-ed to Jürgen Haffer for his efforts to revealStresemann’s long-forgotten contributions.Only when historians of science cease tomake use of the rich records of influentialscientists, as Stresemann certainly was, arethose scientists truly dead. ■

Matthias Glaubrecht is at the Institute ofSystematic Zoology, Museum für Naturkunde ofthe Humboldt University, Invalidenstrasse 43,10115 Berlin, Germany.

book reviews

136 NATURE | VOL 411 | 10 MAY 2001 | www.nature.com

Stresemann transformed avian taxonomy. Birdsof paradise (below) were a lifelong obsession.

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