A Dark Place in the Jungle: Following Leakey's Last Angel into Borneo - Softcover

Spalding, Linda

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1580051014 ISBN 13: 9781580051019

Publisher: Seal Press, 2003

Synopsis

Birute Galdikas, along with Dian Fossey and Jane Goodall, form the famed trio of angels” Louis Leakey trained to study great apes in the wild. While Fossey studied the gorilla and Goodall the chimpanzee, Galdikas went to Borneo to study the orangutan and, decades later, emerged as a complicated figure, embroiled in scandal. Spalding’s quest to know this woman takes her from the offices of Galdikas’s foundation in Los Angeles to the Sekonyer River in Borneo, where she discovers a beguiling cast of characters. A host of foreign scientists, government workers, tourists, loggers, descendants of the Dayak headhunters, Javanese gold miners, and half-tame orangutans all vie for control of this despoiled Eden. Dark Place in the Jungle is an absorbing rumination on the failure of a woman trying desperately to mother a species to survival, the dangers and temptations of eco-tourism, and the arrogance of our inclination to alter the very things we set out to preserve. 30 black-and-white photographs are featured in this revealing and fascinating journey.

About this title

Review

"A haunting, beautifully written combination of travel memoir, nature journal, political expose and examination of the conflicting expectations humans attach to the natural world." "A sophisticated mixture of memoir, science writing and travel essay; a disturbing expose of complex, sometimes counterproductive, attempts to protect an endangered species; and a knowing self-portrait of a perceptive, sympathetic woman trying to make sense of the ambitions and disappointments around her."

About this edition

• Publisher: Seal Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 1580051014
• ISBN 13: 9781580051019
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 296