Synopses & Reviews
AFRICA IN MY BLOOD is an extraordinary self-portrait in letters of Jane Goodall's early years, from childhood to the publication of IN THE SHADOW OF MAN, revealing this remarkable woman more vividly than anything published before, by her or about her. We see her at eleven founding the Alligator Society ("You have to be able to recognize 10 birds, 10 dogs, 10 trees and 5 butterflies OR moths"); at seventeen developing a crush on the local minister ("He has a beautiful long nose and he loves dogs"); at twenty punting at Oxford -- and falling out of the boat ("And I stood in the water -- up to my chest -- and roared and roared with laughter"); at twenty-two working at a film company and saving for a trip to Africa.
At twenty-three, she took that trip, to "the Africa I have always longed for, always felt stirring in my blood." In Kenya's White Highlands, she rode horses, danced, and developed her observational skills on both animals and men ("He is very handsome and Clo and I sat in the car admiring his bottom and feeling sorry for him because he was getting filthy and oily"). The men returned her interest ("What the devil am I to do with all these middle aged married men. They hang in multitudinous garlands from every limb and neck I've got").
The turning point of her life came when a friend told her, "If you are interested in animals, you must meet Louis Leakey." And when she did meet the legendary anthropologist, he saw in this young secretarial school graduate the ideal candidate to undertake a revolutionary study of chimpanzees. He sent her to the Gombe Stream Chimpanzee Reserve on Lake Tanganyika, where she immersed herself in the lives of wild animals as no one had ever done before. Goodall has told this story in other books, but never so immediately and emotionally. She describes a chimp rain dance ("Every so often their wild calls rang out above the thunder. Primitive hairy men, huge and black on the skyline, flinging themselves across the ground in their primaeval display of strength and power . . . Can you begin to imagine how I felt? The only human ever to have witnessed such a display in all its primitive, fantastic wonder?"); a female chimp mating with five males early in the morning ("Hello -- No 5 is queuing, down on the bottom branch. 'Thanks Big Boy, but don't hang around.' No 5 leaps out of the way as No 4 charges down . . . Soon over and off he goes. Now perhaps a girl can have a bite of breakfast"); a colobus monkey clasping its dead baby ("She kept trying to groom its poor little coat. Oh, it was heart rending. I'm only so glad I've never seen a chimp with a dead baby. I just couldn't bear it").
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.
Review
The director of dolphin research at Baltimore's National Aquarium retraces the path by which science has come to understand dolphin intelligence.A committed activist on behalf of dolphin welfare, Reiss provides an account of her personal journey and the history of the development of proofs of the creaturesand#8217; high intelligence. The author chronicles the evolution of the field, beginning with John Lilly's groundbreaking work on their language and concluding with a description of her own experimental work that demonstrates that dolphins are creatures endowed with self-awareness. Reiss also discusses her struggle to get these important findings published in scientific literature. In her doctoral thesis, she proposed a series of rigorous experiments that laid the basis for documenting dolphinsand#8217; ability to communicate with symbols, recognize their mirror image and even reflect upon their experiences. While involved in her scientific studies, she was also struggling to secure funding and protect the animals she was working with from being sold for commercial exploitation. Reiss movingly conveys her deepening relationship with the dolphins, and she documents how, through each step of the process, and with each new generation, there is a tremendous emotional pull built upon the establishment of communication and empathy between our different species. This has historical antecedentsand#8212;reflected in classical mythology, as well as in the actual experiences of people rescued at sea by dolphins. Among the authorand#8217;s purposes in writing this engrossing scientific memoir is to build support to stop the annual massacres of dolphins in Japan and elsewhere.
8-page insert. Author tour to San Diego, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, New York, Boston, Baltimore, Washington, D.C.
Review
"[Goodall]is a natural writer and riveting storyteller. Africa in My Blood confirms these additional talents." --Fort Worth Star-Telegram
"Often letter anthologies are the purview of a subject's near-evangelical followers, but Africa in My Blood is an engrossing primate primer, a treat for old fans, and a fitting tribute to the woman who first made science friendly." --Biography Magazine
"An intimate and vivid portrait" --Natural History Magazine
"Jane Goodall is more than just a remarkable scientist. She is, as other writers have noted, a real-life Horatio Alger.... this is a valuable book." The San Francisco Chronicle
"No one, perhaps, has done more for great apes than Goodall, whose decades of work with Kenyan chimpanzees showed the rest of the world how chimps live -- how they use tools, eat, sleep, have sex, raise their young, fight, make peace -- demonstrating that they deserve further study as well as human protection. Here, in a follow up to last year's spiritual autobiography Reason for Hope, are displayed the roots of that work, in a thick, fun, enlightening, somewhat diffuse compilation of letters that Goodall wrote to relatives, friends, and colleagues over the first 32 years of her life, now amplified by Peterson's introduction and annotations. The earliest letters show the preteen Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall at school in England, chattily inviting her best friend to see her collection of "quite a lot of caterpillars." Later batches describe life in "Chimpland," where Goodall and her co-workers have set up their ongoing project. We see a mother chimp and her neighbors react to a baby; we also see Goodall, then-husband Hugo van Lawick and a cast of dozens handle the practical problems of running a jungle encampment, from parasites to postage and publicity. Goodall describes her work with her mentor, paleontologist Louis Leakey; shows her continued affection for her family; keeps up with U.S. and European animal-behavior researchers such as Konrad Lorenz; and narrates "the proudest [day] of my whole life to date": the chimpanzee "David G -- yes -- he has TAKEN BANANAS FROM MY HAND." This volume covers only the "early years" (1934-1966); readers who care about animal behavior -- or who enjoy the collected letters of a fascinating, friendly, and dedicated woman -- will hope for a sequel." --Publishers Weekly, March 6, 2000
Publishers Weekly
"A sumptuous delight! A story of greatness bred from innocence and wonder of one of the most remarkable lives of our time. As Africa grips Jane Goodall, her story grips the reader. AFRICA IN MY BLOOD allow us to witness, in a very intimate way, how the early seeds of understanding and compassion for chimpanzees changed the very understanding of what it means to be human. Jane's personal letters make you feel like you are a member of the family. This absolutely MUST become the first of a trilogy! The "heart" and the "soul" must join the "blood". I can hardly wait --- it wasn't fair to leave us in 1966 when we know there is so much more." -- Roger Fouts (Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute, Central Washington University)
Review
"A classic of its kind."
Newsweek
"A fascinating combination of breathtaking adventure and absolute devotion to a cause." -- Farley Mowat
Synopsis
Dolphins arent just beloved, they are brilliant and conscious. So why do we treat them so terribly?
Diana Reiss is one of the worlds leading experts on dolphin intelligence. In addition, as a dolphin advocate, she is a leading rescuer who helped inspire and served as an adviser for the Oscar-winning film The Cove.
Here, she combines her science and activism to show just how smart dolphins really are and why we must stop mistreating them. Readers will be astonished at their sophisticated lifelong creativity and playfulness, their emotional intelligence, their level of self-awareness, and their ability to communicate with humans. Her beloved mentor dolphins (as she calls them), each with distinct personalities, create their own toys, use underwater keyboards, tease and scold her playfully, and give us glimpses of their intelligence that often seem very familiar. The Dolphin in the Mirror is both a scientific revelation and an emotional eye-opener, revealing one of the greatest intelligences on the planet.
Synopsis
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.
Synopsis
One of the most important books ever written about our connection to the natural world, GORILLAS IN THE MIST is the riveting account of Dian Fossey's thirteen years in a remote African rain forest with the greatest of the great apes. Fossey's extraordinary efforts to ensure the future of the rain forest and its remaining mountain gorillas are captured in her own words and in candid photographs of this fascinating endangered species. As only she could, Fossey combined her personal adventure story with groundbreaking scientific reporting in an unforgettable portrait of one of our closest primate relatives. Although Fossey's work ended tragically in her murder, GORILLAS IN THE MIST remains an invaluable testament to one of the longest-running field studies of primates and reveals her undying passion for her subject.
Synopsis
World-renowned primatologist, conservationist, and humanitarian Dr. Jane Goodalland#8217;s account of her life among the wild chimpanzees of Gombe is one of the most enthralling stories of animal behavior ever written. Her adventure began when the famous anthropologist Dr. Louis Leakey suggested that a long-term study of chimpanzees in the wild might shed light on the behavior of our closest living relatives. Accompanied by only her mother and her African assistants, she set up camp in the remote Gombe Stream Chimpanzee Reserve in Tanzania. For months the project seemed hopeless; out in the forest from dawn until dark, she had but fleeting glimpses of frightened animals. But gradually she won their trust and was able to record previously unknown behavior, such as the useand#151;and even the makingand#151; of tools, until then believed to be an exclusive skill of man. As she came to know the chimps as individuals, she began to understand their complicated social hierarchy and observed many extraordinary behaviors, which have forever changed our understanding of the profound connection between humans and chimpanzees.and#160;In the Shadow of Man is and#147;one of the Western worldand#8217;s great scientific achievementsand#8221; (Stephen Jay Gould) and a vivid, essential journey of discovery for each new generation of readers.
Synopsis
The culmination of 35 years of research on dolphin and whale intelligence, The Dolphin in the Mirror is a journey inside the minds of both species and a plea that we treat them with the respect due to highly intelligent creatures.
Synopsis
A memoir by the worldand#8217;s leading dolphin and whale expert, revealing the extraordinary richness of these animalsand#8217; intelligence and exposing our terrible mistreatment of the smartest creatures in the sea.
For centuries, humans and dolphins have enjoyed a special relationship, evident not just in mythology and folklore but in many documented encounters. Some past cultures even worshipped dolphins and condemned anyone who killed or wounded of them. Yet in recent decades, a paradox: on the one hand, we have discovered extraordinary depths of dolphin intelligence and their emotional lives, to the point of glimpsing their self-consciousnessand#8212;on the other hand, in Japan, dolphins are slaughtered indiscriminately, and several nations keep them in cruel conditions.
Diana Reiss is one of the worldand#8217;s leading experts on dolphin intelligence who has helped lead the revolution in dolphin understanding for three decades. In addition, as an activist, she is a leading rescuer who helped inspire and served as an adviser for The Cove, and who continues to campaign against the annual Japanese slaughters. Here, she combines her science and activism to show us just how smart dolphins really are, and why we must stop mistreating them. Readers will be astonished at dolphinsand#8217; sonar capabilities; at their sophisticated, lifelong playfulness; at their emotional intelligence; and at their ability to bond with other species, including humans and even dogs! Her beloved companion dolphins, each with distinct personalities, create their own toys, type commands on a keyboard, tease and scold her playfully, and express their affection and delight. In Reissand#8217;s most famous experiments, she used a mirror to prove that dolphins are self-aware, and even self-conscious. The Dolphin in the Mirror is both a scientific revelation and a emotional eye-opener, revealing one of the greatest intelligences on Earth.
Synopsis
Praise for THE DOLPHIN IN THE MIRROR:
“Diana Reiss has managed no small feat—synthesizing personal experience, descriptive material, and scientific fact to provide insights about dolphin behavior for the general public and scientific community alike. Throughout the book, by explaining her ‘enchantment by dolphins, Reiss likewise enchants her audience, ending with an extraordinarily powerful plea for dolphin conservation. No one reading this book could possibly remain untouched by the beauty and intelligence of these powerful mammals of the sea.”—Irene Pepperberg, author of Alex & Me
“The Dolphin in the Mirror should be read by everyone who loves animals. Diana Reiss observations and research will illuminate the world of the dolphins amazing intelligence and playfulness.”—Temple Grandin, author of Animals in Translation and Animals Make us Human
“A wonderful and passionate tour though the career of a scientist who has made groundbreaking discoveries about the minds of dolphins and helped lead the effort to stop the horrific slaughter of dolphins in ‘the Cove in Japan. A must-read for everyone interested in these amazing intelligent animals.”—Richard C. Connor, author of The Lives of Whales and Dolphins: From the American Museum of Natural History
Synopsis
The Dolphin in the Mirror is a memoir by the world's leading dolphin and whale expert, revealing both the extraordinary richness of their intelligence, and the often fatal consequences of their interactions with humans. It is both a journey inside the minds of these amazing creatures and a plea that we treat them with the respect they are due.
Synopsis
Diana Reiss is not just an advocate for dolphins, she is one of the worlds leading experts on dolphin intelligence. In The Dolphin in the Mirror, Reiss combines science and activism to show just how smart dolphins really are and why we must stop mistreating them. Dolphins are creative and self-aware, with distinct personalities and the ability to communicate with humans. They craft their own toys, use underwater keyboards, and develop complex social structures. And yet some nations slaughter them indiscriminately while others keep them captive in cruel conditions. Reiss, who served as a consultant to the Academy Award-winning film The Cove, has devoted her life to studying whales and dolphins since the 1970s and fills the book with personal stories from her life's work. The Dolphin in the Mirror is both a scientific revelation and an emotional eye-opener, revealing one of the greatest intelligences on the planet.
Synopsis
andquot;One comes away from Reissandrsquo;s book agreeing that andlsquo;dolphins are among the smartest creatures on the planetandrsquo; and that they merit not just our attention but our care and protection.andquot;andmdash;New York Times For centuries, humans and dolphins have enjoyed a special relationship, evident not just in mythology and folklore but in many documented encounters. Diana Reiss is one of the worldandrsquo;s leading experts on dolphin intelligence, and her decades of research and interactions with dolphins have made her a strong advocate for their global protection. In The Dolphin in the Mirror, Reiss combines her science and activism to show just how smart dolphins really are and why we must protect them. Dolphins are creative and self-aware, with distinct personalities and the ability to communicate with humans. They craft their own toys, use underwater keyboards, and live in complex societies in the seas. And yet some nations continue to slaughter them indiscriminately. This story of Reissandrsquo;s encounters and research with dolphins is both a scientific revelation and an emotional eye-opener, revealing one of the greatest intelligences on the planet and exposing our terrible mistreatment of the smartest creatures in the sea. andquot;Reiss has managed no small featandmdash;synthesizing personal experience, descriptive material, and scientific fact . . . No one reading this book could possibly remain untouched by the beauty and intelligence of these powerful mammals of the sea.andquot;andmdash;Irene Pepperberg, author of Alex and Me andquot;Reiss fills the book with such intriguing tales and with the science behind themandhellip; Reiss is passionate about her science, but she is passionate about her subjects as well.andquot;andmdash;The Tampa Bay Times
Synopsis
Jane Goodall's account of her life among the wild chimpanzees of Gombe.
Synopsis
A mind-bending, classic Philip K. Dick novel about the perception of reality. Named as one of Time's 100 best books.
Synopsis
“From the stuff of space opera, Dick spins a deeply unsettling existential horror story, a nightmare youll never be sure youve woken up from.”—Lev Grossman,
TimeGlen Runciter runs a lucrative business—deploying his teams of anti-psychics to corporate clients who want privacy and security from psychic spies. But when he and his top team are ambushed by a rival, he is gravely injured and placed in “half-life,” a dreamlike state of suspended animation. Soon, though, the surviving members of the team begin experiencing some strange phenomena, such as Runciters face appearing on coins and the world seeming to move backward in time. As consumables deteriorate and technology gets ever more primitive, the group needs to find out what is causing the shifts and what a mysterious product called Ubik has to do with it all.
“More brilliant than similar experiments conducted by Pynchon or DeLillo.”—Roberto Bolaño
Synopsis
An innovative and original screenplay based on Philip K. Dick's masterpiece.
Synopsis
“An accident has occurred. Joe Chip and his colleagues—all but one of them—have narrowly escaped an explosion at a moon base. Or is it the other way round? Did Joe and the others die, and did the one fatality, Glen Runciter, actually survive? . . . From the stuff of space opera, Dick spins a deeply unsettling existential horror story, a nightmare you’ll never be sure you’ve woken up from.”—Lev Grossman,
Time In 1974, Philip K. Dick was commissioned to write a screenplay based on his novel Ubik. The film was eventually scrapped, but the screenplay was saved and later published in 1985. Featuring scenes that are not in the book and a surreal playfulness—the style of the writing goes back in time just like the technology in the book’s dreamworld—this screenplay is the only one Dick wrote and features his signature mix of paranoia, humor, and big-idea philosophy.
Video
About the Author
Dr. Diana Reiss is Professor in the Psychology Department at Hunter College and in the Biopsychology and Behavioral Neuroscience Program of The Graduate Center, City University of New York. She directs the Dolphin Research Program at the National Aquarium in Baltimore. She is also adjunct faculty in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology at Columbia University, and she served as a member of the Animal Welfare Committee of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. Her research focuses on dolphin cognition and communication, comparative animal cognition, and the evolution of intelligence. She has authored papers published in numerous international scientific journals and book chapters and her work has been featured in many television science programs. She has authored papers published in numerous international scientific journals and book chapters and her work has been featured in many television science programs.
Table of Contents
CONTENTS
and#160;and#160;PREFACE BY JANE GOODALL XI
and#160;and#160;FOREWORD BY RICHARD WRANGHAM XX
and#160;and#160;ACKNOWLEDGMENTS XXIII
and#160;1and#160;BEGINNINGS 1
and#160;2 and#160;EARLY DAYS 13
and#160;3 and#160;FIRST OBSERVATIONS 24
and#160;4 and#160;CAMP LIFE 38
and#160;5 and#160;THE RAINS 51
and#160;6 and#160;THE CHIMPS COME TO CAMP 63
and#160;7 and#160;FLOand#8217;S SEX LIFE 78
and#160;8 and#160;THE FEEDING STATION 88
and#160;9 and#160;FLO AND HER FAMILY 100
and#160;10 and#160;THE HIERARCHY 111
and#160;11 and#160;THE GROWTH OF THE RESEARCH CENTER 129
and#160;12 and#160;THE INFANT 144
and#160;13 and#160;THE CHILD 158
and#160;14 and#160;THE ADOLESCENT 170
and#160;15 and#160;ADULT RELATIONSHIPS 181
and#160;16 and#160;BABOONS AND PREDATION 194
and#160;17 and#160;DEATH 210
and#160;18 and#160;MOTHER AND CHILD 221
and#160;19 and#160;IN THE SHADOW OF MAN 234
and#160;20 and#160;MANand#8217;S INHUMANITY 248
and#160;21 and#160;FAMILY POSTSCRIPT 253
and#160;and#160;APPENDIXES
and#160;and#160;and#160;A.and#160;STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT 269
and#160;and#160;and#160;B.and#160;FACIAL EXPRESSIONS AND CALLS 271
and#160;and#160;and#160;C.and#160;WEAPON AND TOOL USE 275
and#160;and#160;and#160;D.and#160;DIET 279
and#160;and#160;and#160;E.and#160;CHIMPANZEE AND HUMAN BEHAVIOR 282
and#160;and#160;BIBLIOGRAPHY 285
and#160;and#160;INDEX 288
and#160;and#160;ABOUT THE JANE GOODALL INSTITUTE 303