Primate's Memoir

In the tradition of Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey, Robert Sapolsky, a foremost science writer and recipient of a MacArthur Genius Grant, tells the mesmerizing story of his twenty-one years in remote Kenya with a troop of Savannah baboons. ôI had never planned to become a savanna baboon when I grew up; instead, I had always assumed I would become a mountain gorilla,ö writes Robert Sapolsky in this witty and riveting chronicle of a scientistÆs coming-of-age in remote Africa. An exhilarating account of SapolskyÆs twenty-one-year study of a troop of rambunctious baboons in Kenya, A PrimateÆs Memoir interweaves serious scientific observations with wry commentary about the challenges and pleasures of living in the wilds of the Serengetiùfor man and beast alike. Over two decades, Sapolsky survives culinary atrocities, gunpoint encounters, and a surreal kidnapping, while witnessing the encroachment of the tourist mentality on the farthest vestiges of unspoiled Africa. As he conducts unprecedented physiological research on wild primates, he becomes evermore enamored of his subjectsùunique and compelling characters in their own rightùand he returns to them summer after summer, until tragedy finally prevents him. By turns hilarious and poignant, A PrimateÆs Memoir is a magnum opus from one of our foremost science writers.