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Book Reviews
Excerpts:
An Affair with Africa:
Expeditions and Adventures Across a Continent
by Alzada Carlisle Kistner
1998 Island Press, 246 pages
reviewed by Starla Estrada
Armchair travelers, amateur entomologists, professional scientists and anyone with a thirst for the untamed tropics will delight in Alzada Carlisle Kistner’s An Affair with Africa: Expeditions and Adventures Across a Continent. In this memoir, Kistner chronicles her family’s five African expeditions, beginning with a trip to the Belgian Congo in 1960 and ending in 1972-73 with a nine-month excursion across the continent. Her beautifully written stories capture both the allure of Africa and its political chaos . . .
. . . Throughout the narrative, Kistner weaves vivid descriptions of unfathomable scientific fieldwork. Her husband David is the world’s leading authority on rare beetles that live with army ants and termites. Kistner herself is an amateur expert, and on some days she and her husband capture as many as 11,000 of the fingernail-sized insects, with the goal of identifying new species. Anyone remotely interested in -- or terrified of -- bugs and beasts will feel as if she is reading a suspense-thriller. What could possibly happen next as our heroes hunch on all fours, staring into inches-wide processions of vicious army ants? Will they be swarmed by ants the size of an index finger? Attacked by a territorial lioness? Charged by a raging, ear-flapping elephant? Caught in the middle of an angry hippo stampede? . . .
. . . Ecotourism and Sustainable Development:Who Owns Paradise?
by Martha Honey
1999 Island Press, 394 pages
reviewed by Starla Estrada
In Ecotourism and Sustainable Development, Martha Honey provides an honest, comprehensive account of ecotourism around the world. Based on interviews and visits to ecotourism hotspots such as Costa Rica, Cuba and Tanzania, she engages the reader with vivid descriptions of ecotourism projects while providing a compelling look at the promise and pitfalls of the industry. . . . . . Honey’s book honestly assesses the cultural and economic impacts of tourism development on indigenous populations. The author unabashedly asks: Does ecotourism actually work? Is ecotourism really able to provide development and wealth while at the same time helping to preserve fragile environments? . . .
