An English eccentric and adventurer, Tom Harrisson (1911-1976) sought knowledge and renown in a dizzying number of fields, while breaking most of the rules of "civilized" society. This hugely enjoyable story of his extravagant, controversial life offers a sympathetic and insightful look at a charismatic figure who offended as many people as he impressed at the twilight of colonialism on the fringes of the British empire.

By age twenty-one, Harrisson had carried out pioneering ornithological research and explored the flora and fauna of Northern Borneo. While still in his twenties, he wrote a best-selling book based on his experiences living among cannibals in the South Pacific. The next decade found Harrisson applying the techniques of bird-watching to his fellow Britons in what became Mass-Observation, a precursor to modern market research. Later, he won the DSO for parachuting into Borneo behind enemy lines and organizing an army of blow-piping headhunters who eventually killed more than a thousand Japanese soldiers.

After the war Harrisson settled in Borneo, where, as curator of the Sarawak Museum, he transformed it into a model and inspiration for the region; he led efforts to save the orangutan, the green sea turtle, and other endangered species; he discovered the oldest modern human skull known at the time; he published widely in the scientific and popular press, and appeared frequently on the BBC and British television.

A man with tremendous breadth of interest and vision, Harrisson continually sought ways to connect knowledge across disciplines, alienating in the process more narrowly focused alien academics who resented his encroachments -- and his lack of a universitydegree. Yet a number of his ideas, particularly in anthropology and archaeology, seem modern today.

The Most Offending Soul Alive is the rousing and compelling story of a man who has been called one of the most remarkable men of his generation. It portrays an individual of irresistible energy, magnetism, and imagination, but also shows Harrisson to be an emotionally troubled man, who spent much of his life fighting to gain respect from the academic world, despite the fact that he despised many of its values. A hard-drinking, hard driving egotist, full of ambition, curiosity, and pent-up rage, he never had -- during his long career and afterwards -- the recognition he sought and deserved for his many achievements.

Judith M. Heimann entered the diplomatic life in 1958 to join her husband, John, in Jakarta, Indonesia, at his American Embassy post. This, her first time out of the United States, would set her on a path across the continents as she mastered the fine points of diplomatic culture. She did so first as a spouse, then as a diplomat herself, thus becoming part of one of the Foreign Service's first tandem couples. Heimann's lively recollections of her life in Africa, Asia, and Europe show us that when it comes to reconciling our government's requirements with the other government's wants, shuttle diplomacy, Skype, and email cannot match on-the-ground interaction. The ability to gauge and finesse gesture, tone of voice, and unspoken assumptions became her stock-in-trade as she navigated, time and again, remarkably delicate situations. This insightful and witty memoir gives us a behind-the-scenes look at a rarely explored experience: that of one of the very first married female diplomats, who played an unsung but significant role in some of the important international events of the past fifty years. To those who know something of today's world of diplomacy, Paying Calls in Shangri-La will be an enlightening tour through the way it used to be-and for aspiring Foreign Service officers and students, it will be an inspiration. Published in association with ADST-DACOR Diplomats and Diplomacy Series

Judith M. Heimann entered the diplomatic life in 1958 to join her husband, John, in Jakarta, Indonesia, at his American Embassy post. This, her first time out of the United States, would set her on a path across the continents as she mastered the fine points of diplomatic culture. She did so first as a spouse, then as a diplomat herself, thus becoming part of one of the Foreign Service’s first tandem couples. Heimann’s lively recollections of her life in Africa, Asia, and Europe show us that when it comes to reconciling our government’s requirements with the other government’s wants, shuttle diplomacy, Skype, and email cannot match on-the-ground interaction. The ability to gauge and finesse gesture, tone of voice, and unspoken assumptions became her stock-in-trade as she navigated, time and again, remarkably delicate situations. This insightful and witty memoir gives us a behind-the-scenes look at a rarely explored experience: that of one of the very first married female diplomats, who played an unsung but significant role in some of the important international events of the past fifty years. To those who know something of today’s world of diplomacy, Paying Calls in Shangri-La will be an enlightening tour through the way it used to be—and for aspiring Foreign Service officers and students, it will be an inspiration. Published in association with ADST-DACOR Diplomats and Diplomacy Series

November 1944: Army airmen set out in a B-24 bomber on what should have been an easy mission off the Borneo coast. Instead they found themselves unexpectedly facing a Japanese fleet - and were shot down. When they cut themselves loose from their parachutes, they were scattered across the island's mountainous interior. Then a group of loincloth-wearing natives silently materialized out of the jungle. Would these Dayak tribesmen turn the starving airmen over to the hostile Japanese occupiers? Or would the Dayaks risk vicious reprisals to get the airmen safely home? The tribal leaders' unprecedented decision led to a desperate game of hide-and-seek, and, ultimately, the return of a long-renounced ritual: head-hunting.A cinematic survival story that features a bamboo airstrip built on a rice paddy, a mad British major, and a blowpipe-wielding army that helped destroy one of the last Japanese strongholds, "The Airmen and the Headhunters" is a gripping, you-are-there journey into the remote world and forgotten heroism of the Dayaks.