A hundred years ago, the global catastrophe that was the First World War came to an end. Today, it is inconceivable that slaughter of people on such a scale would be tolerated, as world views are changing. And so it is with conservation. A hundred years ago most people would have been baffled by the conversations we now have about threatened species. Even 50 years ago, conservation was a new concept to many, extinctions seen as an inevitable, if slightly regrettable, by-product of development. A book on successful conservation of threatened species, such as Recovering Australian Threatened Species: A Book of Hope (CSIRO Publishing), could not have been imagined. Now it can.