" The Last of Its Kind recounts the final chapter of the great auk's tragic story. Gísli Pálsson's meditation on the meaning of extinction is thoughtful, clarifying, and deeply moving." --Elizabeth Kolbert, author of The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History "A richly detailed, insightful, and valuable account of the little-known expedition that finally awakened Victorians to the reality of human-caused extinction." --Michelle Nijhuis, author of Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction "The extinction of the great auk took place in real time and under the watchful eyes of European naturalists even as the fate of the famous dodo still puzzled them. Gísli Pálsson brilliantly explores the cultural climate in which the idea of human-induced extinction became accepted as scientific fact. Pálsson's elegantly written historical ethnography tells a story that unites the settled ecological past, the ambivalent present, and the probable future." --Jonathan Marks, author of Is Science Racist? "Iceland was where, in 1844, the last great auks were seen and killed--an event documented a few years later by British ornithologists John Wolley and Alfred Newton. Using Wolley's long-forgotten notebooks, Icelandic anthropologist Gísli Pálsson has created a marvelous and penetrating biography of a bird whose extinction is a powerful reminder of our own culpability and vulnerability.

" --Tim Birkhead, author of Birds and Us "This book puts the story of the great auk and its sad disappearance in the much wider context of recent extinctions." --Errol Fuller, author of The Great Auk: The Extinction of the Original Penguin.