American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon - Softcover

9780385521697: American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon
View all copies of this ISBN edition:
 
 
From the host of the Travel Channel’s “The Wild Within.”

A hunt for the American buffalo—an adventurous, fascinating examination of an animal that has haunted the American imagination.
 
In 2005, Steven Rinella won a lottery permit to hunt for a wild buffalo, or American bison, in the Alaskan wilderness. Despite the odds—there’s only a 2 percent chance of drawing the permit, and fewer than 20 percent of those hunters are successful—Rinella managed to kill a buffalo on a snow-covered mountainside and then raft the meat back to civilization while being trailed by grizzly bears and suffering from hypothermia. Throughout these adventures, Rinella found himself contemplating his own place among the 14,000 years’ worth of buffalo hunters in North America, as well as the buffalo’s place in the American experience. At the time of the Revolutionary War, North America was home to approximately 40 million buffalo, the largest herd of big mammals on the planet, but by the mid-1890s only a few hundred remained. Now that the buffalo is on the verge of a dramatic ecological recovery across the West, Americans are faced with the challenge of how, and if, we can dare to share our land with a beast that is the embodiment of the American wilderness.

American Buffalo is a narrative tale of Rinella’s hunt. But beyond that, it is the story of the many ways in which the buffalo has shaped our national identity. Rinella takes us across the continent in search of the buffalo’s past, present, and future: to the Bering Land Bridge, where scientists search for buffalo bones amid artifacts of the New World’s earliest human inhabitants; to buffalo jumps where Native Americans once ran buffalo over cliffs by the thousands; to the Detroit Carbon works, a “bone charcoal” plant that made fortunes in the late 1800s by turning millions of tons of buffalo bones into bone meal, black dye, and fine china; and even to an abattoir turned fashion mecca in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District, where a depressed buffalo named Black Diamond met his fate after serving as the model for the American nickel.

 Rinella’s erudition and exuberance, combined with his gift for storytelling, make him the perfect guide for a book that combines outdoor adventure with a quirky blend of facts and observations about history, biology, and the natural world. Both a captivating narrative and a book of environmental and historical significance, American Buffalo tells us as much about ourselves as Americans as it does about the creature who perhaps best of all embodies the American ethos.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Review:
Amazon Best of the Month, December 2008: Before the 18th century, the American buffalo was the largest land mammal in North America, largely predator-free and roaming the continent in numbers estimated in excess of 40 million. In just over a century, widespread slaughter reduced the population to a few hundred head, and the American West lay beneath a till of bleached bones. When Steven Rinella stumbled over a buffalo skull in Yellowstone National Park, it sparked an obsessive search for the beast's past, from its migration across the Bering land bridge to its near extinction at the hands of western settlers. American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon is his fascinating chronicle, beginning with a search for Black Diamond (the doomed model for the Buffalo Nickel) and including an exploration of "buffalo jumps" (where thousands were run over cliffs by Native American hunters), and tales of bone piles--harvested from the plains for a thriving fertilizer industry--stacked 10 feet high, 20 feet wide, and a half-mile long. Rinella's history is deftly interwoven with his own literal buffalo hunt in Alaska's Wrangell mountains, complete with grizzly bears, raging, ice-rimmed rivers, and bouts of hypothermia and frostbite. Written in a spare style appropriate to the rigors of the frozen wilderness, American Buffalo is engrossing, informative, funny, and a welcome achievement of both natural history and outdoor adventure. --Jon Foro
About the Author:
STEVEN RINELLA is the author of The Scavenger’s Guide to Haute Cuisine and a correspondent for Outside magazine. His writing has also appeared in The New Yorker, American Heritage, the New York Times, Field & Stream, Men’s Journal, and Salon.com. He grew up in Twin Lake, Michigan, and now tries to split his time between Alaska and Brooklyn, New York.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

  • PublisherRandom House
  • Publication date2009
  • ISBN 10 0385521693
  • ISBN 13 9780385521697
  • BindingPaperback
  • Number of pages304
  • Rating

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9780385521680: American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon

Featured Edition

ISBN 10:  ISBN 13:  9780385521680
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau, 2008
Hardcover

Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace

Stock Image

Rinella, Steven
Published by Spiegel & Grau (2009)
ISBN 10: 0385521693 ISBN 13: 9780385521697
New Softcover Quantity: > 20
Seller:
Lakeside Books
(Benton Harbor, MI, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. Brand New! Not Overstocks or Low Quality Book Club Editions! Direct From the Publisher! We're not a giant, faceless warehouse organization! We're a small town bookstore that loves books and loves it's customers! Buy from Lakeside Books!. Seller Inventory # OTF-S-9780385521697

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 10.65
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 3.99
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Seller Image

Rinella, Steven
Published by Spiegel & Grau 9/15/2009 (2009)
ISBN 10: 0385521693 ISBN 13: 9780385521697
New Paperback or Softback Quantity: 5
Seller:
BargainBookStores
(Grand Rapids, MI, U.S.A.)

Book Description Paperback or Softback. Condition: New. American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon 0.53. Book. Seller Inventory # BBS-9780385521697

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 15.02
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Seller Image

Rinella, Steven
Published by Spiegel & Grau (2009)
ISBN 10: 0385521693 ISBN 13: 9780385521697
New Soft Cover Quantity: 1
Seller:
booksXpress
(Bayonne, NJ, U.S.A.)

Book Description Soft Cover. Condition: new. Seller Inventory # 9780385521697

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 15.27
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Rinella, Steven
Published by Spiegel & Grau (2009)
ISBN 10: 0385521693 ISBN 13: 9780385521697
New Paperback Quantity: 1
Seller:
Textbooks_Source
(Columbia, MO, U.S.A.)

Book Description Paperback. Condition: New. 39471st. Ships in a BOX from Central Missouri! UPS shipping for most packages, (Priority Mail for AK/HI/APO/PO Boxes). Seller Inventory # 000977320N

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 11.38
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 3.99
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Seller Image

Rinella, Steven
Published by Random House (2009)
ISBN 10: 0385521693 ISBN 13: 9780385521697
New Softcover Quantity: 2
Seller:
GreatBookPrices
(Columbia, MD, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # 6543564-n

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 13.31
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 2.64
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Rinella, Steven
Published by Random House (2009)
ISBN 10: 0385521693 ISBN 13: 9780385521697
New Softcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
Ergodebooks
(Houston, TX, U.S.A.)

Book Description Softcover. Condition: New. 39471st. The most promising debut by a nature writer in years . . . a hymn to a complicated, long-standing human-animal relationship.-San Francisco ChronicleA hunt for the American buffalo, an adventurous, fascinating examination of an animal that has haunted the American imagination-from the host of the show MeatEater as seen on NetflixIn 2005, Steven Rinella won a lottery permit to hunt for a wild buffalo, or American bison, in the Alaskan wilderness. Despite the odds-theres only a 2 percent chance of drawing the permit, and fewer than 20 percent of those hunters are successful-Rinella managed to kill a buffalo on a snow-covered mountainside and then raft the meat back to civilization while being trailed by grizzly bears and suffering from hypothermia. Throughout these adventures, Rinella found himself contemplating his own place among the 14,000 years worth of buffalo hunters in North America, as well as the buffalos place in the American experience. At the time of the Revolutionary War, North America was home to approximately 40 million buffalo, the largest herd of big mammals on the planet, but by the mid-1890s only a few hundred remained. Now that the buffalo is on the verge of a dramatic ecological recovery across the West, Americans are faced with the challenge of how, and if, we can dare to share our land with a beast that is the embodiment of the American wilderness.American Buffalo is a narrative tale of Rinellas hunt. But beyond that, it is the story of the many ways in which the buffalo has shaped our national identity. Rinella takes us across the continent in search of the buffalos past, present, and future: to the Bering Land Bridge, where scientists search for buffalo bones amid artifacts of the New Worlds earliest human inhabitants; to buffalo jumps where Native Americans once ran buffalo over cliffs by the thousands; to the Detroit Carbon works, a bone charcoal plant that made fortunes in the late 1800s by turning millions of tons of buffalo bones into bone meal, black dye, and fine china; and even to an abattoir turned fashion mecca in Manhattans Meatpacking District, where a depressed buffalo named Black Diamond met his fate after serving as the model for the American nickel.Rinellas erudition and exuberance, combined with his gift for storytelling, make him the perfect guide for a book that combines outdoor adventure with a quirky blend of facts and observations about history, biology, and the natural world. Both a captivating narrative and a book of environmental and historical significance, American Buffalo tells us as much about ourselves as Americans as it does about the creature who perhaps best of all embodies the American ethos. Seller Inventory # DADAX0385521693

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 16.32
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Rinella, Steven
Published by Random House (2009)
ISBN 10: 0385521693 ISBN 13: 9780385521697
New Paperback Quantity: > 20
Seller:
Save With Sam
(North Miami, FL, U.S.A.)

Book Description Paperback. Condition: New. Brand New!. Seller Inventory # 0385521693

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 16.39
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

RINELLA, STEVEN
Published by Penguin Random House (2009)
ISBN 10: 0385521693 ISBN 13: 9780385521697
New Softcover Quantity: > 20
Seller:
INDOO
(Avenel, NJ, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. Brand New. Seller Inventory # 0385521693

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 12.58
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 3.99
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Rinella, Steven
Published by Random House (2009)
ISBN 10: 0385521693 ISBN 13: 9780385521697
New Softcover Quantity: > 20
Seller:
Lucky's Textbooks
(Dallas, TX, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # ABLIING23Feb2215580170357

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 14.44
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: US$ 3.99
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds
Stock Image

Rinella, Steven
Published by Random House (2009)
ISBN 10: 0385521693 ISBN 13: 9780385521697
New Softcover Quantity: 1
Seller:
Books Unplugged
(Amherst, NY, U.S.A.)

Book Description Condition: New. Buy with confidence! Book is in new, never-used condition. Seller Inventory # bk0385521693xvz189zvxnew

More information about this seller | Contact seller

Buy New
US$ 19.00
Convert currency

Add to Basket

Shipping: FREE
Within U.S.A.
Destination, rates & speeds

There are more copies of this book

View all search results for this book