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Rating: 
Summary: A complete guide to African Mammals suitable for field use
Review: Excellent text describing size, habitat, behavior, food and status accompanies beautiful colored illustrations of "all the know African land mammaals". Range maps appear below the illustrations which are adjacent to the text. Each order of mammals is described in detail as well.
Rating: 
Summary: About the Best Currently, but Could Be Improved
Review: First let me say that in general I find this book excellent, and highly recommend it to anyone interested in the mammalian fauna of Africa.
It is very comprehensive, covering every single species of African mammals with the exception of bats, rodents, insectivores, elephant-shrews and hyrraxes, which are usually represented by one species for each genus. But every single genus is represented, and of rodents, every species of squirrel is dealt with separately.
The information accompanying each species is very detailed and appears up to date.Now for the shortcomings:
1) The illustrations are next to the description of each species. Given how detailed/long the texts are, this means that usually there are just 1 or 2 species shown on each page, so to compare all antelopes you must look through a hundred pages or so - not very practical in a field guide!
2) Maps are often pages away from the text and illustration, with no reference to their whereabouts. I often thought there was no map for a species/genus, only to find it pages away, combined with the map for another taxon.
3) While illustrations are identified by the species' English name, the maps are confusingly id'ed by Latin names only. If you aren't familiar with the latter, it takes some cross-reference to find out which species' range you are looking at.
4) The illustrations vary so much in standard that it is hard to believe they were drawn by one person... While most are quite good, even excellent and life-like, others are quite awful, either showing animals with stiff, straight limbs/bodies as if drawn with a ruler (like the Crowned Monkey) or in highly unnatural positions (like the Potto with the limbs twisted out, or the Cheetah standing up like a circus horse). But again, I still think this is the best guide one can get currently (though Collins is about to publish a new one that may be worth checking out) and is definitely worth getting!
Rating: 
Summary: Not the best guide
Review: I used this book while in Africa, and discovered that Africans were using a guide to the mammals of Africa that is better organized and easier to use. I'm still trying to find that other book - difficult when I don't know the authors.
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Summary: Jonathan Kingdon - African Animal Expert
Review: This book is one of the most complete works on mammals of Africa I have ever read. I wish Mr. Kingdon had written one for each continent. Contains scientific, English, French and German names for each animal and local names as well (Swahili).Habits, habitat, behavior and everything else you would expect from such a gifted author, artist, and scientist. The illustrations by the author are museum quality art. I cannot recommend this book too highly, simply the best in such a small volume, worth twice the price.
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Summary: THE Book for African Animal lovers.
Review: This is a dream book for those interested in African mammals. First of all, it does not concentrate on "popular" species, such are lions and cheetahs, but talks about all species and important sub-species. The layout of the book is like this: first the author talks about a certain class of mammals, ex. Carnivores, and talks about the things characteristic to that class; then he goes down to family, e.g. canids, and talks about aspects characteristic to that family, and finally, the species themselves, and talks about their individual characteristics, distribution, size, and status. And it goes like that until every species, family and class of African mammal is mentioned. There are no pictures in the book, but color illustrations of all the species mentioned. The illustations are high-class, so much you can easily imagine what the animal looks like in real life. And now, a few bad points. As a bonus, he adds the names of animals in French, German, and a few African languages. Unfortunately, this is inconsistent throughout the book. I understand for the African languages, but French and German translations should have been given for each species. Also, he doesn't mention the mammals of Madagascar, even though Madagascar is part of Africa. And another thing, which would have been nice: with eponymized species (e.g. Ruppell's fox, Wolf's monkey) he should have mentioned who those species were named for. Nevertheless, I still give this book the highest score, for being complete, at least for continental Africa.
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Summary: A very useful guide with many lovely illustrations
Review: This is a great reference for animals, the guide may not be as thorough as some, but in my opinion, it's thorough enough for the average person..and then some. It has detailed information on the animals it lists, and goes beyond many field guides in this respect. I definitely recommend this book for someone who wants a useful book, loaded with well-drawn color pictures.
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