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A Primate's Memoir: A Neuroscientist's Unconventional Life Among the Baboons
by Robert M. Sapolsky
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Scribner (2001)
ISBN: 0965126781
EAN: 9780965126786
Paperback: 303 pages
SKU: 6856
Condition: As New
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
Author's life in science, especially with baboons in Africa. By one of the best science writers.
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Customer Reviews
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Great Deal!
Rating  (4)
Date: 2008-09-17
I needed this book immediately for school. It arrived in time and in good condition. Before ordering I compared prices and this was the best deal. All around everything turned out perfectly.
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An All Time Favorite
Rating  (5)
Date: 2008-04-09
This book is hard to classify: Is it autobiography? Primatolgy? Travel adventures? Humanist philosophy? Humor? Basically it is all of these and more. It is a real page turner. Sapolsky has a truly marvelous sense of humor that includes knowing how to laugh at himself. I rank it with in the top 10 favorite books I've ever read. Bravo!
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Educational and gripping
Rating (5)
Date: 2008-03-27
This book is an excellent insight into the 20 year life of a biologist who grow as a person while studying baboons and navigating the up and downs of life in Kenya.
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A fun little adventure
Rating (5)
Date: 2008-03-12
This is a fun recollection of Sapolsky's experiences in Africa.
Somebody looking for data might want to avoid it as the information is more about things that struck him through his observations with his baboon troop. Some would be reminded of Goodall's earlier books when he writes about his interactions with the baboon.
There are many chapters on what he went through and the people he meet and interacted.
Some are great such as Thomas who had the great ability to pull endless fish out of a river but it was offset by his other great ability to attract buffalo. As Sapolsky wrote: "Buffalo would scamper in from miles away to nail Thomas, toss him over their shoulders, and send his fish sailing into mudholes, thorn bushes, high into trees." Sapolsky comments about looking for him and find him cursing and spitting and cackling at some buffalo, threatening it with his trademark an astounding pelvic grind, as the monster approached.
That whole imagery made me laugh.
His own personal reflections of living in Africa are rather interesting as he interjects himself into the community. Some of his comments bring another picture to the Masai who many times are pictured as the noble warriors and yet they do questionable things.
Probably one disheartening thing is the corruption that existed and probably still exists. As he prided himself on being a New Yorker; he finds himself being conned and regularly pressed for bribes. And yet, he himself takes to conning people when his money runs out.
An outbreak of Bovine TB ravishes a Baboon troop and eventually hits his troop. Sapolsky finds himself unenviable task of killing Baboons as he tries to discover what is killing the Baboons and where is it coming from. Eventually, he figures it out and it involves corruption and the Masai. He can't even tell people about it because wealthy British hotel owners are against it and the local government is against it as it would hurt the tourist trade.
One thing I thought was interesting was his comments about Fosse. He is not a fan.
Overall it's a fun read.
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Pure Poetry
Rating (5)
Date: 2008-02-15
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
This is a beautiful, poignant, fascinating and enlightening read. It's also a bit heart-wrenching. Despite the fact that it is ostensibly about baboons, each sentence within this book contains more humanity and feeling than a typical week of day to day living on our strange modern worlds.
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Our Price:$10.00
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