‘An Indifference Of Birds’

The story of human history
—from a bird’s eye view

History isn’t so much about the passage of time as the study of change—how did we get from then to now, from there to here? To write the historyof birds and people, you can look at how they’ve changed us, or you can look at how we’ve changed them. This book seeks to do the second thing; this is a book about our place in their history.

Available to buy now from Uniformbooks.

“A formidable piece of work. Extremely well written, with a dazzling lexicon and a roadrunner pace that can turn on a sixpence”—Tim Dee

“Extraordinary”—Max John Porter

“Brilliant and original”—Mathew Lyons, New Humanist

“Wonderfully original … one of the most stimulating books on birds I’ve read in some while”—Nigel Andrew, Literary Review

“A masterpiece… Each of the five chapters offers stark new perspectives on history, environmentalism, rewilding, global warming; on and on the thought gems flow. And Smyth is a beautiful, rhythmic prose stylist”—Andres Kabel, readlistenwatch.com

“A marvelously unsettling book, reorienting us and opening new perspectives… carries us into the strange and humbling timescales and lives of birds, revealing our own history in a startling new light”—David George Haskell

“It’s not like anything else that I know of, not like how other people are writing about birds right now”—Stephen Rutt

“Brilliant … It takes the reader along very different paths from those trodden by other nature-oriented contemporaries. I whole-heartedly commend it, and the author, for the quality of his writing, the clarity of his thought, and his passion for those indifferent birds”—Mark Wilson, British Trust for Ornithology

“Never less than hugely informative … He writes with style, panache and an enviable knack of running the intensely academic and scientific up against the everyday… Exactly the sort of thing we need to start turning the tide”—Matt Merritt, Bird Watching

“A smart, clever book with a unique angle, supported by Smyth’s in-depth knowledge, and via his facility for Stuka divebombs of sentences. Recommended”—Eamonn Griffin

“Fresh and compelling… has the mood-music soundtrack that blights so much nature writing turned to mute”—John Bevis

“Brilliant. Fresh perspective, more understanding. And all the way through … lively language and sharp, clear images. Made me look at how we look at birds (and by extension everything else around us) afresh.”—Simon Spanton

“There are more novel perspectives in here than you’ll find in many books three times the length.”—Mark Avery

“Insightful and important”—David Borthwick