[book review] Systematics and Taxonomy of Australian Birds -- Les Christidis and Walter E. Boles. Collingwood, VIC, Australia: CSIRO Publishing, 2008

Systematists argue that the importance of our work lies not only in the elucidation of evolutionary relationships, but also in the incorporation of evolutionary information into classifications and the use of these classifications by government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, professional scientists, and others interested in biodiversity. If this is true, and I think that it is, then synthetic publications that make our findings accessible to a wide audience, such as Christidis and Boles' new Systematics and Taxonomy of Australian Birds, may be among the most significant works that we publish.