The Tree Where Man Was BornA timeless and majestic portrait of Africa by renowned writer Peter Matthiessen (1927-2014), author of the National Book Award-winning The Snow Leopard and the new novel In Paradise A finalist for the National Book Award when it was released in 1972, this vivid portrait of East Africa remains as fresh and revelatory now as on the day it was first published. Peter Matthiessen exquisitely combines nature and travel writing to portray the sights, scenes, and people he observed firsthand in several trips over the course of a dozen years. From the daily lives of wild herdsmen and the drama of predator kills to the field biologists investigating wild creatures and the anthropologists seeking humanity's origins in the rift valley, The Tree Where Man Was Born is a classic of journalistic observation. This Penguin Classics edition features an introduction by groundbreaking British primatologist Jane Goodall. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 51
Page ii
... Birds Blue Meridian The Snow Leopard Sand Rivers In the Spirit of Crazy Horse Indian Country Nine-Headed Dragon River Men's Lives African Silences East of Lo Monthang Tigers in the Snow The Birds of Heaven End of the Earth PET E R M AT ...
... Birds Blue Meridian The Snow Leopard Sand Rivers In the Spirit of Crazy Horse Indian Country Nine-Headed Dragon River Men's Lives African Silences East of Lo Monthang Tigers in the Snow The Birds of Heaven End of the Earth PET E R M AT ...
Page xiii
... birds. He writes, from experience, of the dread excitement, the tension, of walking through bush country where buffalos, elephants, or rhinos are close but invisible in the dense thickets from which, at any moment, they may charge. And ...
... birds. He writes, from experience, of the dread excitement, the tension, of walking through bush country where buffalos, elephants, or rhinos are close but invisible in the dense thickets from which, at any moment, they may charge. And ...
Page 3
... birds. And farther onward, close to midnight, where the sands relented, came the birds of night—the African owl, and nightjars, and pale Senegal stone curlews whirling straight up into the dark like souls departing. As the night passed ...
... birds. And farther onward, close to midnight, where the sands relented, came the birds of night—the African owl, and nightjars, and pale Senegal stone curlews whirling straight up into the dark like souls departing. As the night passed ...
Page 7
... birds—tropical hawks, doves, pigeons, guinea fowl and francolins, bee-eaters, rollers, hornbills, and myriad weavers, including the quelea or Sudan dioch, which breeds and travels in dense clouds and rivals the locust as an agent of ...
... birds—tropical hawks, doves, pigeons, guinea fowl and francolins, bee-eaters, rollers, hornbills, and myriad weavers, including the quelea or Sudan dioch, which breeds and travels in dense clouds and rivals the locust as an agent of ...
Page 12
... birds. Alone of the three tribes, they have developed a crude snare, but they remain poor hunters, and are often hungry. The Nuer say" that formerly Stomach lived apart from Man, off in the bush, an unobtrusive creature glad of a few ...
... birds. Alone of the three tribes, they have developed a crude snare, but they remain poor hunters, and are often hungry. The Nuer say" that formerly Stomach lived apart from Man, off in the bush, an unobtrusive creature glad of a few ...
Contents
White Highlands I | 18 |
Northwest Frontier | 37 |
Siringet | 72 |
WI Rites of Passage | 112 |
Elephant Kingdoms | 129 |
Great Caldron Mountains | 161 |
Red God | 189 |
Notes | 255 |
Glossary | 261 |
Index | 267 |
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Common terms and phrases
acacia animals arrow Bantu baobab Barabaig birds buffalo bush camp cattle century climb clouds Crater Highlands crossed dark dead desert dogs Dorobo ears earth East Africa elephant Enderlein Engaruka escarpment eyes feet fire forest gazelle George Schaller Gidabembe Giga grass Hadza Hamitic head herd herdsmen hide hills hunters hunting huts hyena Iain Isanzu Kamba Kenya Kikuyu killed Kopjes Lake Lake Natron Land Rover Lengai leopard light lion live Llo-molo Maasai Maasai Land Magandula Mangati Manyara Mbulu Meru miles mountain Myles Nairobi Nangai Natron Ngorongoro night Nile numbers Ol Doinyo Lengai park plain rain region rhino Rift river road rock safari Samburu Schaller Serengeti Seronera shadow Sipunga Sonjo spears stone stood strange Sudan Tanzania thorn track trees tribes truck Tsavo tsetse Turkana turned valley Vesey volcano vultures wild wildebeest wind Yaida Chini zebra