'I had never planned to become a Savannah baboon when I grew up; instead I assumed I would become a mountain gorilla,' writes Robert Sapolsky in this riveting chronicle of a scientist's coming of age in remote Africa. Upon graduating from college, a booksmart and naive Sapolsky leaves the comforts of the Northeastern United States for the very first time, to join a baboon troop in Kenya as a young transfer male'. An expert in primate behaviour, Sapolsky sets out to study the relationship between stress and disease. As he observes the Machiavellian politics of the troop, giving the primates biblical names and pinpointing his favourite (Benjamin) and his nemesis (Nebuchadnezzar), he also immerses himself in the society of the neighbouring Masai tribesmen and ventures far from his camp on a series of jaw-dropping adventures.Combining irreverence and humour with the best credentials in his field, Sapolsky writes as originally and vividly about people and their society as he does about animals and theirs. A Primate's Memoir is the culmination of over two decades of experience and research - an astonishing masterpiece from the unique talent Oliver Sacks has called 'one of the best scientist-writers of our time.'
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I enjoyed this way more than I thought I would! Mainly because I am not particularly interested in baboons. Apparently neither was Robert Sapolsky before he started studying them (he was hoping to study the more manly mountain gorilla), but he made the story of this baboon troop ridiculously, soap opera-ishly compelling. Plus some insights about Africa and human nature OR WHATEVER.
