Rating: 
Summary: A must read if you are going on safari
Review: This book gives you the genuine flavor of safari 80 years ago.
Rating: 
Summary: Like a long conversation with Teddy
Review: This is no literary masterpiece, it has no great theme or thesis; rather it is like what you might have heard if you had the opportunity to converse at length with Roosevelt, but that makes this a very good book. You hear his African stories, his opinions, his knowledge of animals and hunting. The book proceeds chronologically and contains many excellent descriptions of tracking and hunting African game (these might become redundant for some readers). Readers might also be disturbed by his description of what he perceived as the inferiority of certain African peoples, and the need for Africans to be "civilized" through European rule. He also believed in the rightness of making parts of Africa (the best parts of course) a "white man's country" for European settlers, though he insists that "the African native should be treated fairly"--how this would be accomplished is not discussed. Still..."African Game Trails" is a wonderful book for anyone interested in East Africa in the early 1900's, or for anyone interested in Theodore Roosevelt. It was his love of the outdoors, of nature, and of hunting (not contridictions in his time) that led Roosevelt to spend a significant amount of his life in the world's wide open spaces away from "civilization". It is clear that he, like many great thinkers (Beethoven comes to mind), found solace and renewal in the fresh air and quiet of plains, forests, and mountains. He spent almost a year on his African safari. His book was the first by an American to popularize the idea of recreational travel in Africa (still considered a daunting prospect by many Americans today). The prose is easy to read and makes one want to keep reading. Also of interest is the appendix containing the list of books (the "pigskin library") that he took with him on his safari. Roosevelt also promoted the outdoor life and its benefits in "A Book-Lover's Holidays in the Open" (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1916)
| 
