An Inordinate Fondness for Beetles: Campfire Conversations with Alfred Russel Wallace on People and Nature Based on Common Travel in the Malay ... of the Orangutan, and the Bird of Paradise - Softcover

Sochaczewski, Paul Spencer

Softcover

ISBN 10: 2940573263 ISBN 13: 9782940573264

Publisher: Explorer's Eye Press, 2017

Synopsis

An Inordinate Fondness for Beetles follows the Victorian-era explorations of Alfred Russel Wallace through Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia. While Wallace is recognized as co-discoverer of the theory of natural selection (and was perhaps deliberately sidelined by Darwin), he was also an edgy social commentator and a voracious collector of "natural productions"--he caught, skinned, and pickled 125,660 specimens, including 212 new species of birds and 900 new species of beetles.

Sochaczewski has created an innovative form of storytelling, combining incisive biography and personal travelogue. He examines themes about which Wallace cared deeply--women's power, why boys leave home, the need to collect, our relationship with other species, humanity's need to control nature and how this leads to nature destruction, arrogance, the role of ego and greed, white-brown and brown-brown colonialism, serendipity, passion, mysticism--and interprets them through his own filter with layers of humor, history, social commentary, and sometimes outrageous personal tales.

About this title

About the Author

Paul Spencer Sochaczewski is a Geneva-based writer and writing coach. While with WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature International), Paul created global campaigns to protect rainforests and biological diversity, and then developed the WWF Faith and Environment program. Paul has written more than 600 by-lined articles for publications including The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, Wall Street Journal, Travel and Leisure, CNN Traveller, Reader's Digest, DestinAsian, and Geographical. In addition, he has written about the nature of Malaysia in Malaysia: Heart of Southeast Asia, served on the Editorial Advisory Board for the Indonesian Heritage Encyclopedia, and was project initiator for Tanah Air: Celebrating Indonesia's Biodiversity. www.sochaczewski.com

Review

"Alfred Russell Wallace, who is best known as a naturalist and co-discoverer of the theory of natural selection, was a classic explorer in the Victorian mold. He was largely self-taught yet erudite, curious, brave and outspoken. This is the first book that structures his adventures and ideas by themes which resonate with contemporary challenges. Paul Sochaczewski, an explorer of ideas, offers informed, sometimes edgy, always accessible illustrations of issues Wallace cared about deeply: the natural dignity of tribal peoples, the role of colonialism, threats to our natural environment, why boys leave home to seek adventures and collect, how women will determine mankind's future, and how difficult it is to eliminate ego and greed from people in positions of power. This book should make everyone want to explore and experience the rainforests of Asia before they are all gone." -ROBIN HANBURY-TENISON, explorer and author of The Oxford Book of Exploration and The Great Explorers

"A natural storyteller, Paul Sochaczewski has created something much bigger than an "in the footsteps of" book. He has produced a work that looks at the themes Wallace wrote about and lived through - women's power, why boys leave home, the need to collect, our relation with other species, nature destruction, arrogance, the role of ego, white-brown and brown-brown colonialism, serendipity, passion, mysticism - and interpreted them through his own filter. He is a gifted storyteller and the layers of thought, humor, history, commentary and outrageousness Sochaczewski has given us provides a very special view of Wallace that goes beyond biography, beyond travelogue, beyond memoir." -DANIEL NAVID, international environment and development law expert

"This book occupies a new category of nonfiction - part personal travelogue, part incisive biography of Wallace, part unexpected traveller's tales, which coalesce into an illuminating, sometimes bizarre and always entertaining volume. And running through the book is a deep respect for the natural world and the corner of Asia that Wallace and Sochaczewski spent years exploring. After reading this book my enthusiasm for this fascinating and little known part of the world was renewed - I eagerly anticipate my next visit to those amazing islands." -JEFFREY SAYER, professor of conservation and development at James Cook University

"Many of us dream about how exciting it must have been back in the days when Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace were discovering new ways to think about life. Paul Sochaczewski has shown us that the dreams can go live, if one just heads out and looks for the kinds of intriguing, bizarre, exciting, and mind-bending stories that he writes so well. As Wallace might have said, "diversity is the spice of life," and Paul's adventures with Wallace will make your mental curry taste like a party in your brain." -JEFFREY A. MCNEELY, Chief scientist at IUCN

"This is a classic hero's journey - actually a double hero's journey - which amuses, entertains and surprises us as Wallace and Sochaczewski both experience life-changing adventures in Southeast Asia. Wallace was one of science's great over-achievers, and by following his trail, Sochaczewski explores, with ample wit and sardonic insight, Wallace's extraordinary breakthrough in 19th-century evolutionary thinking, and reveals how this relates to contemporary Southeast Asian society, politics and the conservation of life on earth." -ANDREW W. MITCHELL, founder and director of the Global Canopy Programme, Oxford

About this edition

• Publisher: Explorer's Eye Press
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 2940573263
• ISBN 13: 9782940573264
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 490