Elephants have captivated the human imagination for as long as they have roamed the earth, appearing in writings and cultures from thousands of years ago and still much discussed today. In Thirty-Three Ways of Looking at an Elephant, veteran scientific writer Dale Peterson has collected thirty-three essential writings about elephants from across history, with geographical perspectives ranging from Africa and Southeast Asia to Europe and the United States. An introductory headnote for each selection provides additional context and insights from Peterson's substantial knowledge of elephants and natural history. The first section of the anthology, "Cultural and Classical Elephants," explores the earliest mentions of elephants in African mythology, Hindu theology, and Aristotle and other ancient Greek texts. "Colonial and Industrial Elephants" finds elephants in the crosshairs of colonial exploitation in accounts pulled from memoirs commodifying African elephants as a source of ivory, novel targets for bloodsport, and occasional export for circuses and zoos. "Working and Performing Elephants" gives firsthand accounts of the often cruel training methods and treatment inflicted on elephants to achieve submission and obedience. As elephants became an object of scientific curiosity in the mid-twentieth century, wildlife biologists explored elephant families and kinship, behaviors around sex and love, language and self-awareness, and enhanced communications with sound and smell. The pieces featured in "Scientific and Social Elephants" give readers a glimpse into major discoveries in elephant behaviors. "Endangered Elephants" points to the future of the elephant, whose numbers continue to be ravaged by ivory poachers. Peterson concludes with a section on literary elephants and ends on a hopeful note with the 1967 essay "Dear Elephant, Sir," which argues for the moral imperative to save elephants as an act of redemption for their systematic abuse and mistreatment at human hands. Essential to our understanding of this beloved creature, Thirty-Three Ways of Looking at an Elephant is a must for any elephant lover or armchair environmentalist.

Whatever their virtues, men are more violent than women. Why do men kill, rape, and wage war, and what can we do about it? Drawing on the latest discoveries about human evolution and about our closest living relatives, the great apes, Demonic Males offers some startling new answers. Dramatic, vivid, and firmly grounded in meticulous research, this book will change the way you see the world. As the San Francisco Chronicle said, it "dares to dig for the roots of a contentious and complicated subject that makes up much of our daily news."

"Elephant Reflections "brings award-winning wildlife photographer Karl Ammann's gorgeous images together with a revelatory text by writer Dale Peterson to illuminate one of nature's greatest and most original works of art: the elephant. The photographs move from the purely aesthetic to the informative, depicting animals who are at once enigmatic, individual, mysterious, elusive, and iconic. In riveting prose, Peterson introduces the work of field scientists in Africa and explains their recent astonishing discoveries. He then explores the natural history and conservation status of African elephants and discusses the politics of ivory. "Elephant Reflections "is a book that could change the way the world thinks about elephants while we still have some measure of control over their fate.

On July 12, 1969, Ruth Davis, a young American volunteer at Dr. Jane Goodall's famous chimpanzee research camp in the Gombe Stream National Park of Tanzania, East Africa, walked out of camp to follow a chimpanzee into the forest. Six days later, her body was found floating in a pool at the base of a high waterfall. With careful detail, The Ghosts of Gombe reveals for the first time the full story of day-to-day life in Goodall's wilderness camp-the people and the animals, the stresses and excitements, the social conflicts and cultural alignments, and the astonishing friendships that developed between three of the researchers and some of the chimpanzees-during the months preceding that tragic event. Was Ruth's death an accident? Did she jump? Was she pushed? In an extended act of literary forensics, Goodall biographer Dale Peterson examines how Ruth's death might have happened and explores some of the painful sequelae that haunted two of the survivors for the rest of their lives.

The most comprehensive book on giraffes to appear in the last fifty years, this volume presents a magnificent portrait of a group of animals who, in spite of their legendary elegance and astonishing gentleness, may not entirely survive this century. Dale Peterson's text provides a natural and cultural history of the world's tallest and second-biggest land animals, describing in detail their biology and behavior. He offers a new perspective on the giraffes' place in our world, and argues for the stronger protection of these imposing yet endangered creatures and their elusive forest relatives, the okapis. Some 120 stunning photographs by award-winning wildlife photographer Karl Ammann capture the grace and elegance of Giraffa camelopardalis. Both beautiful and informative, the images document giraffes' complex interactions with each other and their environment.

What is a Storyville? Whether you're in Toast, North Carolina, Monkey's Eyebrow, Kentucky, or Winner, South Dakota, a Storyville is a real town you can find on a map, with a tale behind its quirky name. Covering 20,000 miles of U.S. roads, Dale Peterson drove with his kids, Britt and Bayne, from Start, Louisiana, to Deadhorse, Alaska in search of small-town America in the "garage sale of the open highway." Along the way they explored open spaces, wild places, and country back roads and met people who weren't afraid to talk to one another. Together, they discovered the sights, sounds, tastes, and smells of nearly sixty small towns, as well as the zany stories behind them, guided by an AAA Road Atlas, expert local storytellers, and lots of curiosity. They dipped into Caddo Lake and the everglades of Uncertain, Texas, went a little crazy in Loco, Oklahoma, and learned about bee colonies in Climax, New York. Conversations with townsfolk range from the refrigerator at the center of Noodle, Texas, and the hazards of Accident, Maryland, to issues of civil rights, religion, and environmental preservation. Collected here are the landscapes, landmarks, faces, thoughts, and conversations of a sentimental, idiosyncratic, and often hilarious American odyssey. Storyville, USA is a long, winding trip into the back roads of the country and a longer one into the hinterland of our own hearts.

"A beautifully written book about an ongoing tragedy of global significance. Dale Peterson's account sweeps across broad issues of conservation and animal welfare that are linked to human welfare and should be the concern of everyone everywhere."--Edward O. Wilson, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning "On Human Nature

"I applaud Dale Peterson for taking on this challenging subject with courage and honesty. In identifying development, in the form of logging, as the primary threat to biodiversity in Africa, this book gets it right, and I recommend it most highly to anyone who wishes to be let in on the secrets of Africa's biggest conservation crisis."--Marcellin Agnagna, former Director of Wildlife and National Parks for the Republic of Congo

"The African Great Apes, our closest living relatives, are in imminent danger of extinction. "Eating Apes, "in beautiful prose, exposes the enormity and complexity of this conservation crisis. It took great courage to gather and present this information. You must read this book."--Jane Goodall

"It is with joy that I welcome this beautifully written and persuasive book that I pray should be read not only in America and Europe but also in Africa. We are facing an environmental crisis because of those few political and corporate opportunists who take advantage of weak political institutions lacking legitimacy for the indigenous peoples of Central and West Africa."--Ajume H. Wingo, Professor of Political Philosophy, University of Massachusetts, Boston, and Research Fellow of the W.E.B. DuBois Institute, Harvard University

"What is happening to our nearest relatives, the African great apes, in their last remaining strongholds, is appalling, yetmost of us know nothing about it. We should all thank Dale Peterson and Karl Ammann for this powerful book, which should end that ignorance. Everyone should read it, and then insist that their governments act before it is too late."--Peter Singer, author of "Animal Liberation "and "Ethics "

"In "Eating Apes, Dale Peterson becomes the Hercule Poirot of the tropics. When he heard that in the equatorial forests apes have become meat for loggers, Peterson set off to part the curtain on a world of jungle tragedy where cultures collide, where innocence is eroded by money and power, and where conservation all too often collapses into politics. What he found is shocking, but his detective work means that ignorance is no longer an excuse for the world's inaction. Will the apes survive? "Eating Apes is a brilliant, intimate guide to the challenge--and a launching-pad for the rescue mission."--Richard Wrangham, author of "Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence

"Peterson and Amman's book is a bold and brave j'accuse of the logging and conservation organizations who are spearheading this latest attack. You must read this book. And then you must follow the advice of Peterson and Amman as to what you can do to help stop it."--Roger Fouts, author of "Next of Kin

In her nearly 60-year career as a groundbreaking primatologist and a passionate conservationist, Jane Goodall has touched the hearts of millions of people. The Jane Effect: Celebrating Jane Goodall is a collection of testimonies by her friends and colleagues honoring her as a scientific pioneer, an inspiring teacher, a devoted friend, and an engaging spirit whose complex personality tends to break down usual categories. Jane Goodall is the celebrity who transcends celebrity. The distinguished scientist who's open to nonscientific ways of seeing and thinking. The human who has lived among non-humans. She is a thoughtful adult with depth and sobriety who also possesses a child's psychological immediacy and sense of wonder. She is a great scientific pioneer, and yet her pioneering work goes far beyond producing advances in scientific knowledge. The more than 100 original pieces included in this inspirational collection give us a sense of her amazing reach and the power of the "Jane effect."

All of us will face trials in our lives. Every one of us will experience trouble-physical and spiritual-and the reality of the pain will seem more than we can bear. It is not what happens in your life that measures who you are, but how you respond to what happens to you. God prepares deep valleys for some of us to walk through in order to touch many lives with His love and grace. My dearest and best friend of nearly forty years, Dale Peterson, has endured more trouble and walked through deeper valleys than anyone I know. Instead of allowing his troubles to destroy him, he dug wells in his valleys that would not only refresh him but also water the lives of those his life touches. This book will encourage you and show you how it is possible for a man to live through difficult times with great integrity and to use the lessons that God taught him to refresh the lives of others. I recommend this book not only because Dale is my friend, but because of what I have seen in his life, I want in my own. Dave Brown-Pastor, First Baptist Church East Longmeadow, MA

This essential biography of one of the most influential women of the past century shows how truly remarkable Jane Goodall's accomplishments have been. Goodall was a secretarial school graduate when Louis Leakey, unable to find someone with more fitting credentials, first sent her to Gombe to study chimpanzees. In this acclaimed work, Dale Peterson details how this young woman of uncommon resourcefulness and pluck would go on to set radically new standards in the study of animal behavior. He vividly captures the triumphs and setbacks of her dramatic life, including the private quest that led to her now-famous activism.
Peterson, a longtime Goodall collaborator, has a unique knowledge of his subject. Candid and illuminating, this work will be a revelation even to readers who are familiar with the public Goodall as presented in her own writing.

What is a Storyville? Whether you're in Toast, North Carolina, Monkey's Eyebrow, Kentucky, or Winner, South Dakota, a Storyville is a real town you can find on a map, with a tale behind its quirky name. Covering 20,000 miles of U.S. roads, Dale Peterson drove with his kids, Britt and Bayne, from Start, Louisiana, to Deadhorse, Alaska in search of small-town America in the "garage sale of the open highway." Along the way they explored open spaces, wild places, and country back roads and met people who weren't afraid to talk to one another.

Together, they discovered the sights, sounds, tastes, and smells of nearly sixty small towns, as well as the zany stories behind them, guided by an AAA Road Atlas, expert local storytellers, and lots of curiosity. They dipped into Caddo Lake and the everglades of Uncertain, Texas, went a little crazy in Loco, Oklahoma, and learned about bee colonies in Climax, New York. Conversations with townsfolk range from the refrigerator at the center of Noodle, Texas, and the hazards of Accident, Maryland, to issues of civil rights, religion, and environmental preservation. Collected here are the landscapes, landmarks, faces, thoughts, and conversations of a sentimental, idiosyncratic, and often hilarious American odyssey. "Storyville, USA" is a long, winding trip into the back roads of the country and a longer one into the hinterland of our own hearts.

AFRICA IN MY BLOOD is an extraordinary self-portrait, in letters and commentary, of Jane Goodall's early years, from childhood to the landmark publication of IN THE SHADOW OF MAN. It reveals this remarkable woman more vividly and clearly than anything that has been published before, by her or about her. We see Goodall grow from a schoolgirl into the promising young candidate whom the legendary Louis Leakey sent to a wildlife preserve on the shores of Lake Tanganyika to undertake a revolutionary study of chimpanzees. At Gombe we see her immerse herself in the lives of wild animals as no one had done before. AFRICA IN MY BLOOD is a dramatic, moving, funny, and important book that tells the story of how an English girl who loved animals became one of the greatest scientists of the twentieth century.

A lifelong fascination with primates led Dale Peterson to Africa, which he criss-crossed in hope of sighting chimpanzees in the wild. As with any adventure worth retelling, however, Peterson's detours are as notable as his destinations. With the good-natured fatalism of the tested traveller, Peterson tells of trains and riverboats, opportunities and ecotourists, rain forests and shanty towns as he conveys the pitfalls of going forth on a budget as tiny as the continent is vast. Along the way, we also meet Jane Goodall and several other renowned primate researchers and caretakers. This is travel writing with a purpose, an account that inspires both admiration and concern for Africa's people, places and natural diversity.

Using Shakespeare's play The Tempest and its characters Prospero and Caliban as structural metaphors representing the master-slave relationship between humans and chimpanzees, authors Dale Peterson and Jane Goodall collaborate in this exploration of our interaction with the species that shares more than 98 percent of our genetic makeup. After introducing us to an animal that fashions and uses tools, exploits forest medicines, transmits learned cultural behaviors, and exhibits human-like emotions, Peterson and Goodall present an illuminating, frequently startling study of the current threats to wild chimpanzees' habitats and the many abuses that chimps have endured and continue to face at the hands of humans. They address conservation issues and ethical questions concerning keeping chimpanzees in captivity, whether as pets or for entertainment or research, and offer firsthand evidence of the drastically declining numbers of chimpanzees in the wild.

Through their in-depth exploration of our relationship with chimpanzees, Peterson and Goodall demonstrate our close ties to these animals and also reveal how distant humans have become from their own place in nature. Both an informative, entertaining collection of stories about the authors' research experiences with chimps and a poignant call for a change in our perceptions and treatment of them, Visions of Caliban is a moving and important work.

In this new memoir, nature historian Dale Peterson (author of Jane Goodall: The Woman Who Redefined Man) describes his travels through Africa with Swiss wildlife photographer Karl Ammann. Dedicated to stopping the slaughter of endangered bushmeat, Ammann is in turns brilliant, provocative, and irritating - almost as wild as the animals he seeks to save.