The Tree Where Man Was Born: The African Experience

Avon Books, 1974. Trade paperback. Very Good. 10x7x0. The Book is in Very Good+ condition. Beautifully photographed by Eliot Porter. In this classic volume, Peter Matthiessen exquisitely combines nature and travel writing to bring East Africa to vivid life. He skillfully and magically portrays the sights, scenes, and people he observed firsthand in several trips over the course of a dozen years: the daily lives of herdsmen and hunter-gatherers; the drama of the predator kills; the hundreds of exotic animals; the breathtaking landscapes; the area's turbulent natural, political, and social histories; the adventures of the field biologists who pursue and investigate the habits of wild creatures; the anthropologists seeking man's origins throughout the Rift Valley; and the lonely African, poised between the traditional ways and the conflicting demands of Western culture. Peter Matthiessen (May 22, 1927 – April 5, 2014) was an American novelist, naturalist, wilderness writer, and zen teacher. A co-founder of the literary magazine The Paris Review, he was the only writer to have won the National Book Award in both nonfiction (The Snow Leopard, 1979, category Contemporary Thought) and fiction (Shadow Country, 2008). He was also a prominent environmental activist.