This book, forthcoming from the University of Washington Press in 2027, explores the history of house sparrows, European starlings, and dozens of other European songbird species that European Americans introduced into North America in the nineteenth century. These birds fit into immigrants' efforts at home-making on a new continent, as reminders of home and, they hoped, as defenders of shade trees and crops from insects. Yet many descendants of immigrants -- farmers, scientists, bird protectionists, and others -- soon came to see their avian fellow immigrants as out of place in North America. In many ways, the niches within human storytelling that propelled these birds across the Atlantic were as important to their success as the ecological niches they found in North America.
This book, forthcoming from the University of Washington Press in 2027, explores the history of house sparrows, European starlings, and dozens of other European songbird species that European Americans introduced into North America in the nineteenth century. These birds fit into immigrants' efforts at home-making on a new continent, as reminders of home and, they hoped, as defenders of shade trees and crops from insects. Yet many descendants of immigrants -- farmers, scientists, bird protectionists, and others -- soon came to see their avian fellow immigrants as out of place in North America. In many ways, the niches within human storytelling that propelled these birds across the Atlantic were as important to their success as the ecological niches they found in North America.