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The Year of the Gorilla

Reissue

With a New Postscript

This seminal work chronicles George B. Schaller’s two years of travel and observation of gorillas in East and Central Africa in the late 1950s, high in the Virunga volcanoes on the Zaire-Rwanda-Uganda border. There, he learned that these majestic animals, far from being the aggressive apes of film and fiction, form close-knit societies of caring mothers and protective fathers watching over playful young. Alongside his observations of gorilla society, Schaller celebrates the enforced yet splendid solitude of the naturalist, recounts the adventures he experienced along the way, and offers a warning against poaching and other human threats against these endangered creatures. This edition features a postscript detailing Schaller’s more recent visits with gorillas, current to 2009. 

“Whether the author is tracking gorillas, slipping past elephant herds on narrow jungle paths, avoiding poachers’ deadfalls, or routing Watusi invaders, this is an exciting book. Although Schaller feels that this is ‘not an adventure book,’ few readers will be able to agree.”—Irven DeVore, Science


290 pages | 30 halftones, 27 line drawings, 3 maps | 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 | © 2010

Biological Sciences: Behavioral Biology, Natural History

Table of Contents

Foreword, 1988
Introduction
1. In the Realm of the Mountain Gorilla
2. The Impenetrable Forest
3. Interlude in the Plains
4. Mt. Tshiaberimu
5. A Walk in the Forest
6. Among Gorillas
7. A Home in the Highlands
8. A Gorilla Day
9. "Am I Satyr or Man?"
10. Uhuru
Epilogue
Postscript, 1989-2009
Selected Reading

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