An Eternity of Eagles The Human History of the Most Fascinating Bird in the World

About this book

From one of the foremost authors and naturalists in the USA comes a compulsively readable natural and social history of the most fascinating bird in the world – the eagle – with an introduction by Annie Proulx. Author Stephen J. Bodio traces our love-hate relationship with these "living dinosaurs," from Neolithic rock art and Native American religion through the practices of Kazakh falconers who use them to hunt wolves, all the way to contemporary art and popular culture. He examines the natural history, evolution, and habits of eagles, as well as such contemporary threats as habitat loss and pesticides.

An Eternity of Eagles is an abundantly illustrated celebration of all things eagle, by a naturalist who has kept eagles himself and ridden with the eagle tribes of Central Asia.

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Biography

Stephen Bodio was born in Boston in 1950. He studied Biology and English literature for years at both Universities of Massachusetts without ever quite managing to get his degree. He has lived in a remote rural village in New Mexico for over thirty years, and has traveled extensively in Europe, Africa, and especially Asia.

He has published six books, and has been editor and anthologist of more, as well as a frequent contributor to magazines. He has been on the masthead of publications as various as the scholarly English Literary Renaissance and the upscale outdoor magazine Gray's Sporting Journal, where he wrote a book column for eleven years. He has reviewed everything from novels to natural history for many papers, including the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the (London) Times Literary Supplement. His articles, essays, and stories have appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, Smithsonian, Sports Illustrated, and the LA Times Magazine, and in literary quarterlies. He is now a contributing editor and book columnist for the magazine Living Bird.

He was recruited by Annie Proulx to be the first resident faculty member at Sterling College's Wildbranch Writers Workshop in Vermont, where he taught for nine years. His last book, Eagle Dreams, was about his adventures with the Kazakh horsemen of Mongolia. An excerpt, published in the Atlantic, was included in Frances Mayes' anthology Best American Travel Writing.

He has a lifelong interest in birds, their behavior, and their relations with humans, as reflected in his books on falcons and pigeons. He has hunted with falcons for almost fifty years, kept rare pigeon breeds, and has bred and trained saluki dogs and their Asian relatives for thirty. He recently assisted retired Russian scientist and dog expert Vladimir Beregovoy with his translation of a 19th Century Siberian hunter's memoir. He has also contributed text and introductions to works about and by wildlife artists, including Thomas Quinn, Vadim Gorbatov, and Thomas Aquinas Daly.

Bodio's latest book, An Eternity of Eagles, on the natural and cultural history of eagles, comes out in October of 2012. He has also recently completed a "book of books" about the most interesting sporting literature of all time, scheduled for the spring of 2013. A memoir, a book about the ancient dogs of Central Asia, and a collaboration with his photographer stepson on western travelers in the Szechuan- Tibetan border country are all in the pipeline. He still lives in Magdalena, a former cattle drive town in the mountains of southern New Mexico, with his wife, Elizabeth (Libby) Adam Frishman, a second- generation mountaineer, archaeologist, and former Outward Bound trekking guide.