About the Book
Avian Illuminations examines the many roles birds have played in human society, from food, messengers, deities and pets, to omens, muses, timekeepers, custodians, hunting companions, decorative motifs and, most importantly, embodiments of our aspirations. It narrates the history of our relationships with a host of birds including crows, owls, parrots, falcons, eagles, nightingales, hummingbirds, and many more. Along the way the book describes how birds' nesting has symbolised human romance, how their flight has inspired inventors throughout history, and concludes by showing that the interconnections between birds and humans are so manifold that a world without birds would effectively mean an end to human culture itself. Beautifully illustrated, this is a superb overview of our long and rich association with our feathered friends.
About the Author :
Boria Sax teaches at Sing Sing prison and online in the graduate literature programme at Mercy University. He has published many books, which have won awards and been translated into numerous languages. His most recent is Avian Illuminations: A Cultural History of Birds (Reaktion, 2021).
Review :
Birds can go wherever they want, muses Boria Sax in Avian Illuminations, his wide-ranging, wistful history of human connections with the bird world, from the first drawings on cave walls to Rachel Carson’s dire warnings. Some birds may beat their wings, some might just prefer to let themselves be carried by the wind. It is almost impossible, writes Mr. Sax, “to imagine this sort of freedom.”
Sax says his overall purpose in the book is “to show how intimately our bonds with birds are bound up in the matrix of ideas, practices, fears and hopes that make up what we call ‘human civilisation’”. In fact, he believes “these interconnections are so profound . . . that a world without birds would effectively mean the end of humankind, even if we continued to pass on some approximation of our DNA”. To this end, he draws on a rich assemblage of examples from ornithology, history, folklore, literature, popular culture and graphic arts to weave together what he calls his “bird’s nest” of facts, stories, myths and images.
Avian Illuminations is a gorgeous – and heavy – book . . . Beautifully written and drawing deeply on ornithology, history, religion and mythology, Avian Illuminations is a book to be savoured, not just read.
Boria Sax's latest book, Avian Illuminations: A Cultural History of Birds, is a must-read. I had no idea about the many roles birds have played in different human societies, ranging from food, messengers, deities, and pets, to omens, muses, timekeepers, custodians, hunting companions, decorative motifs, and, most importantly, embodiments of our aspirations . . . [an] illuminating and beautifully illustrated book.
Eclectic . . . Given so many references to art ranging from ancient to modern, representing solitary birds and those appearing incidentally in large historical paintings, readers may wonder, "How did he find that?" The text is surprisingly good reading, in part because the author dug deeply. Who knew that Montezuma kept a huge aviary and zoo? Selected chapters may fascinate, whether for their detail or because birds are revealed to be so much a part of the fabric of human life throughout history. Recommended.
Captivating and graced with exquisite illustrations, Boria Sax’s Avian Illuminations blends history, folklore, art, literature, and ornithology to explain why birds are such an integral part of human dreams and aspirations . . . Avian Illuminations, with its rich content and glorious illustrations, educates, entertains, and aims a body-blow to human pride with its reminder that when birds reigned as dinosaurs, human ancestors were still “relatively small marsupial-like balls of fur.”
This lavishly illustrated book is quite an ambitious undertaking. Sax covers a wide range of themes, from birds in mythology, in history, religion and in art, to birds in the future. A whistle-stop tour of our historical relationship with birds from the dawn of humanity to the present.
A well-illustrated introduction to the human cultural history with birds.
Magnificently illustrated, this is a superb overview of our long and rich association with our feathered friends.
Sax’s expression "avian illuminations" (and the title of his book), refers to the "intense identification of a person with a bird" – a term that allows for a vast array of possibilities. Indeed, such is the breadth and sheer density of scholarship in this beautifully produced and richly illustrated volume, I was reminded of Ulisse Aldrovandi’s sixteenth- / seventeenth-century ornithological encyclopedia, Ornitholgiae. Sax’s knowledge of bird-human relations is extraordinary and he has left almost no stone unturned in his quest for completeness.
a wide-ranging, profound and captivating book on the relationships between humans and birds . . . Boria Sax has assembled a prodigious amount of information from ornithology, folklore, history, literature and art to show that birds “have had many roles in human society.” Most importantly, they act as “embodiments of our aspirations” — what we hope to be or wish not to be . . . the entire book is generously illustrated with magnificent images — 207 of them in color. Avian Illuminations is such a delight for the eyes it could easily have been a larger-format, coffee-table tome. That it captures the imagination as well is almost a bonus.
The book examines birds’ many roles in human society, myth-making and folklore . . . The book is full of gorgeous illustrations of birds in art and avian symbolism . . . This book would be a marvelous gift for a birdwatcher or budding ornithologist in your home.
Speaking of birds, I spent an hour recently . . . paging through a wonderful book: Avian Illuminations: A Cultural History of Birds by Boria Sax. It focuses on the role of birds in history, art, philosophy, religion. Think about how much birds figure into our world and imagination. The Phoenix arising from the ashes. The Thunderbird of Pacific Northwest Haida culture. The Harpy of Greek mythology.
The wonderful Avian Illuminations traces in rich and fascinating detail the cultural relationships between humans and birds through history, philosophy, religion and art. This is a book for difficult times—it entertains, educates, elucidates and, in its assessment of what might be necessary to repair a damaged world, gives us hope.
Boria Sax has long been my most trusted guide to understanding the complex relationships between humans and animals. In Avian Illuminations, I feel very fortunate to follow his wonderful mind once again as he weaves a complex portrait of the symbolic richness of our portrayals of birds throughout history and myth.
From Homer to Harry Potter and Plato to Rachel Carlson, Boria Sax provides a masterful overview of the role of birds in human cultural and psychological life. Drawing on history, literature, mythology and art, Avian Illuminations is a beautifully written intellectual treat that will delight anyone interested in the feathered creatures we share our world with.
Birds have provided models in almost every aspect of human culture. Their songs inspired our music; their courtship rituals, our dance; their plumage, our fashion . . . Avian illuminations by Boria Sax covers the vast range of practices that diverse cultures have taken from birds with extraordinary thoroughness. It also goes beyond listing the colorful array of practices and motifs in isolation to show how they have provided much of the emotional and intellectual foundation of human culture.
A fascinating exploration of those ecstatic moments when a human becomes enraptured by contemplation of a bird – moments which, as Boria Sax explains, can approach a religious level of intensity. I never imagined that birds had occupied so many roles in human lives and imaginings and through such a deep swath of history. An inspiring and fascinating read.
In Avian Illuminations, Boria Sax, with the deep probing intellect of a renaissance scholar, reveals how human culture has been informed and shaped by birds. His history covers thousands of years and has something special for everyone, whether a poet, artist, historian, folklorist, falconer or birder.
