1This book is for mariners, birders, Indonesians, ecologists, anthropologists, and anyone who has heard of Alfred Wallace. It is a book for all to enjoy.

2Wallace was a poor, self-taught naturalist and tropical animal collector best known for figuring out why the world has (or at least had) so many separate species. And he did so independently of Charles Darwin. Indeed, Wallace may have conceived the idea of populations becoming separated and changing gradually into new species before Darwin, comfortable in a wealth of detail, ever saw “the big picture.”

3Severin relishes following Wallace’s sea route in Eastern Indonesia with his dedicated crewmates, both Indonesians and others: a doctor, an ornithologist, an ecologist, seamen, photographers, and artists. We see the Eastern Islands both through Wallace’s writings – especially The Malay Archipelago – and through Severin’s observations. This provides a satisfying form of time travel. Along the way, one learns something about Kei Island boat building, black orchids, Wallace’s beetle-mania, Dobbo as it was in 1857 and 1986, frogmouths, ladies’ hats, malaria, environmental education in Maluku, Ambon sewage, endangered species, Waigeo, Sorong, Gilolo, maleos, the Sulawesi meat market of cuscus and babirusa, and the enormous illegal trade in exotic birds. In discussing one example of species endangerment, Severin writes (p. 132), “Whatever the law said, a Bird of Paradise – alive or dead – was still a prestige symbol in ­Indonesia for whoever owned it. Streets were named after it,... the bird appeared on the national bank note, and the local regiment in Ambon wore the Bird of Paradise on their shoulder flashes.”

4As elsewhere in the world, ecological and cultural conservationists in Indonesia are in the minority, Severin reports. But he found that the rare bright spots in Eastern Indonesia of flashing butterfly wings, protected forests and coral reefs, and local cultural continuity went hand in hand. He couldn’t help but see that the government bureaucracy had little positive effect, for various reasons, venal or otherwise.

5As political events in Indonesia over the past few years have shown, change is the byword for the whole country. In the opinion of some observers, these short-term issues not only mask the long-term ones of cultural and ecological survival, they worsen them. That is, local control over local resources is far better than Jakarta, or multinational, control. It is also more just.

6Taking all this into consideration, one might wonder what a future voyager in a Kei-island boat will observe in Eastern Indonesia fifty years, or even five years, hence. All the same, I for one would like to be on the next boat that takes the same route – preferably in the company of Tim Severin.