Description:
In Reason for Hope, her spiritual autobiography, Jane Goodall writes of how as a girl "the Holocaust dramatically introduced me to the age-old problem of good and evil. This was not an abstract theological problem in 1945; it was a very real question that we had to face as the horror stories mounted." Years later, she was brought face to face with another dreadful situation: the way chimpanzees are treated by human beings, their closest relatives. Goodall was so shocked by what she learned that she stopped doing field work and now devotes her formidable energy and determination to chimpanzee welfare and conservation. From the forest world where Goodall had conducted decades of groundbreaking research on chimpanzee behavior, captive chimps enter "a world of steel bars and heavy chains, beatings and painful medical procedures, solitary confinement and taunting, jeering crowds of ignorant people." To educate her fellow humans about these conditions, Goodall knew that a picture would be worth much than a thousand words. She joined forces with nature photographer Mike Nichols, who had worked with George Schaller on Gorilla: Struggle for Survival in the Virungas. Nichols's photos bring the beauty of the chimpanzees' natural environment and their lives in captivity into soul-searing contrast. Together with Goodall's prose, which is forceful without being overblown, they make an unforgettable, motivating document. --Mary Ellen Curtin
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