- Hardcover: 380 pages
- Publisher: Macdonald; First Printing edition (Oct 1987)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0446513601
- ISBN-13: 978-0446513609
- Product Dimensions: 22.6 x 16 x 3.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
942,691 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #38 in Books > Science & Nature > Biological Sciences > Animal Sciences > Habitats > Mountains
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Product Description
Product Description
Deep in the volcano country of central Africa live some of the rarest, most intriguing animals on earth -- the mountain gorillas. Here, in the mist-shrouded forests, Dian Fossey courageously dedicated her life to studying them. Here she patiently waited until the luminous-eyed gorillas accepted her presence, hugged her, and loved her...while she fought for their survival against poachers, callous researchers, zoo collectors, and local bureaucrats. And here, surrounded by these enemies, she died, mysteriously and brutally murdered.
Now, one of the world's most respected naturalist writers draws for the first time ever on Dian Fossey's personal writings to reveal the true story of a magnificent obsession...one woman's enormous empathy for a highly intelligent, desperately endangered animal -- and how it ruled her life, her work, and her heart. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
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First Sentence
Neither destiny nor fate took me to Africa. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Neither destiny nor fate took me to Africa. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
When it came to dealing with people, Dian Fossey was sometimes her own worst enemy, but her dedication to saving the African mountain gorilla and its habitat in Rwanda is indisputable. Describing himself as an "editorial collaborator," rather than as a biographer, Farley Mowat assembles Fossey's story from her never-before-printed journals and private papers, inserting them into the book in boldface so she can tell her own story. From her founding of the Karisoke Research Center in Rwanda in 1967, until her murder there in December, 1985, Fossey battled to save "those she loved" from poaching, abduction, and dismemberment.
Throughout her eighteen years at Karisoke, Fossey studied organized groups of gorillas to whom she became so familiar that they would even touch her. As fierce and protective of her own "turf" as a silverback, however, she refused to bend to the exigencies of the political climate and funding requirements and made innumerable enemies. When local herdsmen exerted their age-old rights to graze cattle on "her" mountain, Fossey shot the cattle. When poachers hurt her gorillas, she pursued them, even kidnapping the four-year-old son of one of them to force his surrender. When students at her own Center disagreed with her, she could be brutal.
Fossey also fought local officials, park guards, and conservators who took bribes and staged events in order to protect their payoffs. She battled conservation organizations which wanted to get her funds, rival researchers who wanted to take over her project, and governmental officials who saw tourism in the park as a source of wealth and graft. Always fighting with ferocity, she made no effort to see another point of view or compromise. Her unsolved murder in 1985, by someone who knew the layout of her cabin could have been by someone from any of these alienated groups.
Mowat presents Fossey as a lonely warrior who never found personal peace, a woman who was instrumental in drawing pubic attention to the plight of the mountain gorilla but who was less sucessful than she had hoped. As he points out in his Epilogue, her cause has been continued by some of the researchers who studied with her. Two of those, Amy Vedder and Bill Weber, continue the story of the gorillas from the death of Fossey through 1993's disastrous Rwandan Civil War. Their book, In the Kingdom of Gorillas: Fragile Species in a Dangerous Land, reflects a more conciliatory viewpoint than that of Fossey. Mary Whipple
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
At first I read this book with great pleasure. It's well written, the relations between Fossey and the gorillas and her will to protect the species from extinction are moving.
But the author actually never met with Dian Fossey, and the biography is based mostly on her diaries. And given the emotional and physical state of Fossey in her last years this source of informations should have been taken more cautiously.
This I realised when I read a more documented book ("In the Kingdom of Gorillas", by Bill Weber and Amy Vedder) giving a different account of the same events, in a convincing and objective way I found.
There is a whole part of Fossey's personality which is not described, as well as aspects of gorillas conservation that are omitted and proved to be vitals in the years following Fossey's death. Both contributing to keeping intact the image that Fossey acquired around the world. What she did was extraordinary anyway, and there was no need to do so. But it also cast a shadow on the work and courage of other collaborators.
I am passionate about the book's subject, but at the end I felt betrayed by the probable inaccuracies in the story.
But the author actually never met with Dian Fossey, and the biography is based mostly on her diaries. And given the emotional and physical state of Fossey in her last years this source of informations should have been taken more cautiously.
This I realised when I read a more documented book ("In the Kingdom of Gorillas", by Bill Weber and Amy Vedder) giving a different account of the same events, in a convincing and objective way I found.
There is a whole part of Fossey's personality which is not described, as well as aspects of gorillas conservation that are omitted and proved to be vitals in the years following Fossey's death. Both contributing to keeping intact the image that Fossey acquired around the world. What she did was extraordinary anyway, and there was no need to do so. But it also cast a shadow on the work and courage of other collaborators.
I am passionate about the book's subject, but at the end I felt betrayed by the probable inaccuracies in the story.
Format:Paperback
The Dian Fossey Gorilla Foundation was Founded by Dian Fossey in 1978 in order to educate the public and save the so few remaining Gorillas in Africa, in the world. I thank God for her life, she was a remarkable woman who fought against all the odds and through her death - has won, the education, the saving of the animals she so adored, continues on today. This book, written by Farley is a book which is presented in Dian's own words .. he quotes from her diary, her notes .. and her private photographs were used. I will be very happy to have this book close to me again, just to look at, to read from and to be inspired by - as my origional one which was sent to me by Farley, signed, was borrowed from me and never returned - so if anyone out there knows where it is, I would love to have it back ! I met Dian Fossey just a few months before she was murdered - hearing her speak with such a strength, passion and love is something that has stayed strongly in my mind ever since.
Mary Alice Pollard
Cornwall's Voice for Animals.UK
http://justnicephotos.homestead.com/CVFA.html
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