A lyrical exploration of the diverse sounds of our planet the creative processes that produced
these marvels and the perils that sonic diversity now faces We live on a planet alive with
song music and speech. David Haskell explores how these wonders came to be. In rain forests
shimmering with insect sound and swamps pulsing with frog calls we learn about evolution's
creative powers. From birds in the Rocky Mountains and on the streets of Paris we discover how
animals learn their songs and adapt to new environments. Below the waves we hear our kinship
to beings as different as snapping shrimp toadfish and whales. In the startlingly divergent
sonic vibes of the animals of different continents we experience the legacies of plate
tectonics the deep history of animal groups and their movements around the world and the
quirks of aesthetic evolution. Starting with the origins of animal song and traversing the
whole arc of Earth history Haskell illuminates and celebrates the emergence of the varied
sounds of our world. In mammoth ivory flutes from Paleolithic caves violins in modern concert
halls and electronic music in earbuds we learn that human music and language belong within
this story of ecology and evolution. Yet we are also destroyers now silencing or smothering
many of the sounds of the living Earth. Haskell takes us to threatened forests noise-filled
oceans and loud city streets and shows that sonic crises are not mere losses of sensory
ornament. Sound is a generative force and so the erasure of sonic diversity makes the world
less creative just and beautiful. The appreciation of the beauty and brokenness of sound is
therefore an important guide in today's convulsions and crises of change and inequity. Sounds
Wild and Broken is an invitation to listen wonder belong and act.
