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Known for such feats as being the first climber to reach the summit of K2 without bottled oxygen, climbing Antarctica's highest mountain, and leading a team to the top of a formidable 2,000-foot granite tower in the most remote corner of the Amazon's Orinoco jungle, Rick Ridgeway, in his latest book, takes a walk. Of course, it's no ordinary stroll. Accompanied by park officers, Ridgeway treks unprotected among lions and elephants, rhinos and oryxes.
The Shadow of Kilimanjaro is as much a search for answers to an adventurer's most soul-searching questions as an account of a thrilling journey. In the introduction Ridgeway writes,
Henry David Thoreau did not write that in wilderness is the preservation of the world, as he is oft misquoted, but that "In wildness is the preservation of the world." There is a difference, and it is significant. A wildness is intact. In wildness, all the original pieces are there. My own backyard mountains in California, from the Coastal Range through the Sierras, are in many places wilderness, but none of it is wildness because the grizzly is gone. We may have the grizzly on the state flag; having it there, however, is not a celebration of our heritage but a burlesque of what we have done to the most noble patriarch ever to walk the land.
Starting at the top of Mount Kilimanjaro and ending at the Indian Ocean, Ridgeway's aim during this adventure is less to get there and more to be there. During his weeks on foot, he thoughtfully considers the effects of colonial expansion on Africa's indigenous peoples, its landscape, and its awe-inspiring animals--all the while contemplating with a conservationist's heart Africa's uncertain future. --Kathryn True
Book Description
In one of the most acclaimed travel and adventure books of the past year, Rick Ridgeway chronicles his trek from the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro to the Indian Ocean, through Kenya's famed Tsavo Park. His tale is, according to The Boston Globe, "a gripping account of how it feels to be charged by an incensed elephant and kept awake at night by the roaring of stalking lions." But it is more than an adventure story. The Los Angeles Times noted that "the pace of walking gives Ridgeway time to contemplate his great theme and the great men and women who have struggled with the conundrum of whether man can live at peace with the beasts." Ridgeway examines the effects of colonial expansion on the indigenous people, the landscape, and the animals, and contemplates the future for all of them.
Customer Reviews:
A Great Book on East Africa.......2007-06-08
Let me first of all say that Rick Ridgeway is one of my favorite adventure writers. This book is focused on the area around Kilimanjaro and the current state of the conservation movement. Rick does a wonderful job of describing the area as he makes his way on foot from Kilimanjaro to the East coast of Africa.
One of my favorite aspects of this book is that Rick includes all the books he has used in his research to gain a better understanding of the history of East Africa.
If you love a well written adventure, with enough meat to make you want to dig deeper in understanding Africa - this is your book.
Travel, Nature, Adventure, and History all in one package.......2006-02-07
Author Ridgeway writes a well-paced narrative that smoothly ties together his personal adventure in eastern Africa with the area's history and culture, particularly in terms of its ecology, with focus on elephants as the defining megafauna of the area.
Ridgeway provokes thought on the future of Africa's large animals, the past fate of those large mammals that have already disappeared, and how we humans tie into all of this. His primary sources are the people who have shaped and continue to shape Kenya's game and wildlife policies; these sources give his writing the distinct tinge of veracity.
Recommended for any interested in travel, African history, or ecology.
Ethnocentric and quite boring.......2005-09-08
I was so disappointed by this book I could not get through more than a couple of chapters. The author may know about mountaineering, but he seems to know very little about Kenya. Moreover, I found the writing to be ethnocentric and quite boring.
"Whatever happens to beasts happens to man.".......2005-02-26
Combining moments of danger with moments of profound introspection, mountaineer/explorer Ridgeway details his journey from the top of Mount Kilimanjaro through the Tsavo game reserves to Mombasa, a month-long journey on foot, which allows him to experience man's primal relationships with the environment. Traveling with an experienced guide, two members of the Kenya Park and Wildlife Service, and two sharpshooters (in case of life-threatening danger), Ridgeway follows dry riverbeds across the savanna, seeking "tactile knowledge of Africa's wildlands and wild animals."
Far more than a search for thrills, the journey offers Ridgeway an opportunity to observe breath-taking vistas and the full panoply of wildlife, from the elephant to the tiniest of birds, paying equal attention to all. Mourning the absence of once-plentiful animals from the bushlands near Kilimanjaro, and the decline of species elsewhere, Ridgeway contemplates the long-term effects of colonialism, big game hunting, poaching, traditional tribal values, climatic changes, and tourism, as well as man's seemingly innate tendency to kill certain species into extinction.
Ridgeway, long a hunter himself, is an engaging author, both observant and thoughtful. A great admirer of hunter-turned-game-park-adminstrator Bill Woodley, whose two sons from the Park and Wildlife Service are on the journey, he provides a sensitive and impartial treatment of conservation issues. Extolling the work of elephant researchers Cynthia Moss and Joyce Poole, the latter of whom joins the group for part of the journey, he points out that they have acquired through study a kind of knowledge not available to hunters. Without preaching, he conveys "the big picture," making a compelling case for the fact that to preserve Africa's large mammals one must "fight fiercely not only to preserve, but even to expand, their wild habitat." Mary Whipple
Not at all patronizing.......2002-04-01
Rick Ridgeway has written a very informative and entertaining account of his 300 mile hike West to East across southern Kenya in 1997. The walk was metaphorically in THE SHADOW OF KILIMANJARO beginning on the summit of that great mountain and spanning the different ecological zones of mountain moraine, foothills, savannah, scrub, desert, and finally tropical white sand beaches of the Indian Ocean coast near Malindi. More significantly Ridgeway writes about his journey in the shadow of others who have written famously on Kenya, most significantly Hemingway, Dinesen, and Blixen. At yet another level this story is set in the shadow of Kenya's colonial history and its current struggles as a developing nation trying to make its way in the modern world.
Ridgeway deals with all the relevant issues - ecology and the environment, conservation, domestic politics, the economy, tourism, the romantic literary images, the colonial legacy, the Mau Mau uprisings, cultural, ethnic, and social issues. And he deals with them in the way good travel writing should. Simply present the facts as you get them and let others speak their truths. No moralizing and very little contextualizing and therefore very refreshing.
The image of Kenya that emerges is that of a real country. Not too much of the fantasy and gloss of a romantic wilderness nor the equally unreal vision of warring tribes at THE ENDS OF THE EARTH. Just reality. Strengths, weaknesses, beauty, blemishes, issues, agendas, and concerns. All the things that face a people making their way on a rapidly globalizing planet. Although Ridgeway's Kenya is a very different place than the country I knew in the 1960's when I lived there in my youth, it's still as rich and as alive as I remember it and Ridgeway has done an excellent job of bringing it home.
Book Description
CONSERVATION AND GLOBALIZATION opens with a discussion of these two broad issues as they relate to the author's fieldwork with Maasai herding communities on the margins of Tarangire National Park in Tanzania. It explores different theoretical perspectives (Neo-Marxist and Foucauldian) on globalization and why both are relevant to the case studies presented. Readers are introduced to the practice of multi-sited ethnography and its centrality to the anthropological study of globalization. While drawing on examples from specific Maasai communities, the book is more broadly concerned with the historical and contemporary links between these communities and a global system of institutions, ideas, and money. The ecological incompatibility of Western national park-style conservation with East African savanna ecosystems and Maasai resource management practices, are highlighted. The concept of national parks is traced temporally and geographically from Maasai communities to the enclosure movement in 18th century England and westward expansion in 19th century North America. The relationships of parks to Judeo-Christian assumptions about "man's place in nature," colonial ideologies like Manifest Destiny and the Civilizing Mission, and capitalist notions of private property and "The Tragedy of the Commons," are explored. The book also looks at the latest conservation paradigm of "Community-Based Conservation," and explores its connections to the Soviet Collapse, economic and political liberalization, and the global proliferation of NGOs.
Customer Reviews:
Inspiration for Aspiring Community Development Reseachers.......2004-03-04
From the first page of his introduction, Jim Igoe's assertiveness in presenting his work on why and how community-based conservation is failing in parts of Tanzania as well as in the United States hits readers hard, sparking their interest in these issues. Over the last decade the term conservation has reached a fluid state in which it presents the world with a new obstacle of maintaining a balance between humans and the environment, which will ideally promote reciprocal productivity in a sustainable measure. Igoe's account of the state of conservation surrounding National Parks in both the United States and Northern Tanzania is unique. Not only was he able to portray his experiences in a manner in which a western reader can relate to, but he was also able to maintain an outside perspective while becoming immersed in a new culture. In affect, Igoe was able to make correlations between two indigenous cultures who are experiencing similar struggles as they have been pushed off their land in the interest of national conservation. Additionally, he critically assesses the current approaches, which are being used to address the issue of conflict between indigenous people, political leaders and environmental conservationists.
I found two dominant strengths in this literature, the first of which is his use of diverse cultural examples. As an undergraduate student with a strong interest in this topic as well as some previous knowledge concerning the issues presented, I found Igoe's narrative style refreshing as well as engaging. Readers are able to get a direct insight into the Maasai culture and a clear historical account of the implications of colonialism and religion. Additionally, Igoe presents the progression of the development of national parks and what resulted in western fortress conservation in Tanzania. Together this information provides a solid background allowing readers who are both educated and new to these topics to gain a better understanding of how the current state of conservation arose. Secondly, his combination of information creates a piece of literature that addresses critical global issues, which can be applied to a wide variety of disciplines. Alone this speaks highly for the books adaptability in various classrooms as well as a reference for professionals in various fields. Furthermore, it supports the fact that in order for new forms of conservation to be successful it is necessary to bring together experts in various social, political, and scientific disciplines.
Conservation Through the Eyes of a Native.......2004-01-04
The social consequences that conservation brings to indigenous people has often been ignored by those trying to protect natural resources and wildlife. Jim Igoe explains and displays what happens and has happened to the people who live outside the famous national parks many of us know and cherish around the world. He presents case studies of how people who live outside the parks have suffered all over the globe. He describes this situation with passion and personal examples, as he lived with many of the people he describes. His work has given him a unique perspective, as he did not travel or live like the typical tourist who wants to view the native flora and fauna that has been protected.
The book's primary focus is East Africa, but Jim includes a substantial amount of material from other regions and cultures. His strength, in this text, is his ability to look at conservation through a global lens, but with a native's perspective. His knack for engaging people at all levels shows in this book. Jim's writing is easy to follow, crystal clear, and relates his first hand experiences and examples in a way that quickly give his work broad appeal. He brings to life the reality of indigenous people struggling to adapt to globalization and the pressure on natural resource base they have relied on for centuries.
This book has appeal at many levels. For high school and undergraduate students it offers an interesting examples of how important anthropology is to understanding the human issues of many global problems. His personal examples and ideas offer discussion points, which once read will not be forgotten. For graduate students Jim offers many ideas on how his own work with NGO's (Non government organizations) got started, progressed, and changed his life. The importance of understanding land tenure, community control, the role of NGO's and different types of parks, as well as the capacity of the local people are all shown to clearly impact both conservation and local people. For conservationists, researchers, and the general public this book offers a unique perspective and voice of the people who have been displaced, lost their livelihoods, and in a few cases successfully adapted to this change.
Globalization has affected us all, and in many cases has had negative consequences for indigenous people. Jim clearly shows that there are much larger forces at work than simply protecting interests of the wildlife and wild areas. Exploring policies of the National Park Service in the United States, as well as policies of other countries, he weaves together the similarities and clearly points out the different ways in which natural resources are managed. In addition to offering an important critique of failed policies, Jim Igoe offers alternative solutions necessary for both the environment and social justice, while providing lessons in history, land tenure and policy making from all over the globe. I recommend this book to all of my students traveling abroad to work with indigenous people.
A clear and challenging account.......2003-12-11
Good authorship requires two things - a story to tell and good way of communicating it. Jim Igoe has both in buckets. Conservation and Globalisation is a clear and challenging story of how conservation practices can disrupt local lives and how apparently straightforward solutions to the problems resulting are riven with complexity and difficulty.
The book is based primarily on fieldwork in East Africa and Prof Igoe's enlivens his account of the problems of understanding the worlds he encountered there with a down to earth uncomplicated style that takes the reader right out to the towns and plains where the work was conducted. This is a must-read for any student contemplating ethnographic or anthropological fieldwork. But its scope is far more than merely East Africa. Prof Igoe's pen takes us to England before the Industrial Revolution and to the latest developments in National Parks in the US, Australia, Nepal, Brazil and Panama. He quite clearly shows how the problems of conservation and civil society are global in their origins and nature and have to be understood through a multitude of sites.
One of the book's greatest strengths is its analysis of civil society, local movements and non-governmental organisations. At a time when much hope and expectation is vested in democratisation and local empowerment this work is a sanguine wake-up call to the problems that these notions bring with them. It quite clearly demonstrates how these ideas are manipulated by local actors, often with very different agendas from global organisations, and transformed by the perpetuated dysfunction typical of the institutions implementing of global development and conservation ideals.
I would, therefore, recommend this book to students, conservationists and development workers in all situations. Its language and style are accessible to all. Its questions and challenges will inform expert practitioners, university teachers and PhD students. This is an excellent book.
Book Description
Accompanied by a photographer, two scientists, and a few armed rangers, Philip Caputo set out through the forbidding plains Tsavo in search of Africa's most feared and efficient killers—massive maneless lions with a man-eating reputation.
Over the past century, speculation about the ghostlike killers has gone unanswered, although recent studies suggest that the maneless lions may constitute a feline missing link between modern lions and their prehistoric ancestors. Therein lies the quest driving the expedition to find a scientific explanation for these fierce creatures and why they occasionally prey on humans. This vivid narrative of a scientific journey, available for the first time in paperback, is a riveting work from one of America's finest writers.
Customer Reviews:
An interesting work.......2006-08-19
The author tags along on a couple of scientific studies and reports what actually goes on. Very entertaining and enlightening but the theory that proved most promising is discounted in a similar study so we still don't have the answer to why the lions are maneless. But, that's nature...
The blend of science and adventure here makes for a riveting read.......2005-11-07
Philip Caputo's Ghosts Of Tsavo: Stalking The Mystery Lions Of East Africa blends travelogue with nature in telling of the author's journey to Kenya's Tsavo National Park on foot with his guides, then in companionship with two scientists who seek close encounters with the big cats. Are the maneless lions found in Tsavo a subspecies of African lion, and a missing link? These lions are especially fierce, and the blend of science and adventure here makes for a riveting read.
The Outlaw Lions.......2004-03-27
"Tsavo" means "place of slaughter" - the lions there are abnormally large, have maneless males, and are historically known as man-eaters. In 1898 two rogue lions terrorized a railway construction project; these lions were called "Ghost" and "Darkness" and inspired a 1996 film about this event. The Tsavo district is in south Kenya adjacent to Tanzania. This pair of lions would sneak into the construction camp at night, snatch up men from their tents and consume them within hearing distance. The engineer in charge, Lt. Col. John Henry Patterson, was an experienced tiger hunter but was often outwitted by these beasts. The contract laborers from India came to regard them as body-snatching demons. Eventually Patterson shot one lion from a platform. He trailed the second after wounding it (pp.7-8). A century later another man-eating lion appeared (pp.9-21). Note how this implies another form of colonial oppression: the people cannot keep and bear arms. A dozen 12 gauge shotguns could eliminate these wild beasts.
There are other beasts preying on Kenya today (p.33). Muggings, murders, and carjackings are so common that tourism is declining. This is matched by other sub-Sahara African countries. White colonials are safe in their fortresses, like medieval aristocracy (p.34). Tsavo lions are genetically different from common lions. They may be descended from maneless cave lions of the Pleistocene period. Their massive size matches their prey: the large, strong Cape buffalo (p.44). Theory says a crippling wound causes a lion to turn man-eater; the other reason is a loss of natural prey due to disease or over-hunting (p.46). Or they were taught from preying on abandoned bodies! Most man-eaters killed were in good or fair condition (p.47). Page 47 tells how a lion was killed with a knife!
Much of the fossil evidence of early human evolution comes from the bones left by large feline predators. It still happens to bicycle riders and drinkers at pubs (p.132). Predators look for a sign of weakness or injury. Page 256 tells how to hunt a lion. Find a carcass, then track the lion to where it was sleeping. Kill it before it awakes. Males with large, dark manes are preferred by females (p.251). Two myths about man-eaters are disproved on page 266. Man-eaters are not old or injured, or can't catch "normal" prey. Primates, like humans, are the normal prey of big cats for thousands of years. 7,000 people were killed in India by tigers in the mid-1920s. 1,500 humans were killed in southern Tanzania between 1932 and 1947 (p.267). Lions use their strong jaws and powerful limbs to kill. They pull an animal down and break its neck or clamp down on its muzzle to suffocate it (p.268). An area free of wild prey can create man-eating lions, particularly if the colonial rulers ban firearms to the people. Burial practices left dead bodies above ground, which attracted predators and trained them as man-eaters. Epidemics and famine added to the human food supply (p.292).
Almost made it.......2003-11-15
Caputo is pulitzer winner. As such, I expected much more from his book. He seems to pose a basic question, "Are the lions in Tsavo genetically different?" He spends a great deal of time interviewing scientists about this point. He arranges funding for a study to be done. He goes to Africa, to Tsavo with some scientists. Where, according to his own account, he tells them that he doesn't want to know! He doesn't want science to de-mystify his world view.
In the end, he never really gets an answer. He also, seems to find it curious that lions should be man eaters. While in Africa, he is constantly asking professional hunters, long time residents and scientist to explain how this could be. Sorry, I don't understand why the question even has to be asked.
In the end, the book left me frustrated.
Engaging look at unusual lions.......2003-05-10
"Ghosts of Tsavo" is part travelogue, part natural history, part murder mystery, and part mid-life crisis for its author Philip Caputo. What it is as a whole is a fascinating, engaging look at the lions of Tsavo Park in Kenya. Caputo first became interested in these unusual lions as a result of a visit to the Field Museum in Chicago as a young boy. Therein were "Ghost" and "Darkness" two enormous males lions that terrorized constructions workers building a rail line through Tsavo. In fact terrorized may be too weak a word as they are credited with killing at least 120 people and literarily halting construction until they were eventually hunted down and killed by British Lt. Col. Patterson who was heading up the project. He recounted this effort in his famous memoir "The Man Eaters of Tsavo" and kindled a fascination with Kenya's lions that lingered with Caputo for half a century.
What sets the lions of Tsavo apart from the more familiar ones we know from nature documentaries, is that they are much bigger, and the males are either maneless of have very short manes, in either case nothing like the regal mountains of fur on their cousins from the Serengeti. In the first half of the book, Caputo explores reasons as to why this might by the case. It is possible that since Tsavo is much warmer than the Serengeti, manes are too expensive in terms of internal resources to grow. Another possibility is that the thick scrub brush and thorns of the region wear down manes before they ever become truly impressive.
However, it is a more controversial theory that makes for the most entertaining reading. Caputo encounters several scientists who argue that the lions of Tsavo are genetically distinct from the lions on the Serengeti. Moreover, they argue that the lions of Tsavo are in fact a throw back to prehistoric lions, quite literally walking fossils. The point to the lack of manes, the much larger height and girth and the fact that Tsavo lions hunt the enormous Cape Buffalo as justifications for this thesis.
Ultimately, Caputo, in three journeys to Kenya over the course of eighteen months (once as a tourist and twice with scientific expeditions) is never able to definitively state which hypothesis is correct. However, that in no way detracts from his rambling, conversational narrative. Caputo is not a scientist, and he in no way pretends to be one, although he does (and justifiably so) consider himself a well-informed observer. As such, he is not constrained by the rigors of academia, and can therefore transfer his passion for these lions and the mystery surrounding them onto the page. In fact, towards the end he grows weary of the scientific studies as they somehow detract from the powerful aura that surrounds the lions.
If you are interested in lions in general, or if the prospect of some spine-tingling tales of man-eating lions sounds appealing, "Ghost of Tsavo" is well worth reading. However, beyond the surface elements, Caputo has written a book that captures the raw spirituality of nature, and that bemoans modern man's detachment from the primitive. So it is entirely likely that even if you have no interest in lions at all, you may be drawn to Caputo's lament for something we don't even realize we have lost. Either way, "Ghost's of Tsavo" is well worth reading.
Jake Mohlman
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