The Spice Island Voyage by Tim Severin, Little, Brown & Co. 1997, 267pp, ISBN 0-316-88175-9, £20.00

Having re-enacted the voyages of Jason and the Argonauts, St. Brendon and others Tim Severin sails a prahu through the Spice Islands following the wake of Alfred Russel Wallace, the unassuming naturalist and specimen collector, whose letter to Charles Darwin in 1858 proposing evolution by natural selection precipitated Darwin's long delayed publication. Both voyages and especially their searches for Birds of Paradise are described in parallel and compared. The problems facing conservationists are recognised. There are many drawings and some good photographs but the map of this unfamiliar region could be of larger scale. A biography is included of the man acknowledged by Darwin but forgotten by history. J.L.C

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