Sy Montgomery - Walking With the Great Apes: Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, Biruté Galdikas

PRAISE FOR Walking with the Great Apes

Full of fascinating issues.... Sy Montgomery explains the immense complexity of these womens science, the difficulties of observing shy creatures, and the many subtle techniques by which this has been managed. Most important, she fends off the stock criticism that there must be something wrong with women who spend so much time with apes and demonstrates the arbitrariness of the notion that only humans are worth knowing.... This is a fascinating, shrewd, sensitive, thought-provoking book.

New York Times Book Review

Clear, eloquent, classy, refreshing, utterly free of gossip and trivial detail that tend to tangle so many biographies of famous women, this is a marvelous book.... Montgomery is a wonderful writer, lively, accurate and kind.... Far more than a biography of the three women who have become known as the trimates, this is a biography of their relationships with the animals.

ELIZABETH MARSHALL THOMAS,
author of The Hidden Life of Dogs

Just as Goodall, Fossey, and Galdikas have given us entree into the world of the Great Apes, so Montgomery brings us to a deep and compassionate understanding of these three modern shamans, and to a recognition of the extraordinary way in which they have helped close the gap that yawns between us and the rest of animate creation.

FARLEY MOWAT,
author of Never Cry Wolf

This is a book Im going to give to my niece for her fifteenth birthday as evidence of the wild. It is not only an accessible study of the work done by Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Birut Galdikas... but also a glimpse into the wilds of the human heart, specifically, the fierce devotion of women. Welcome to the world of the woman warrior.

KATHLEEN NORRIS,
Hungry Mind Review

A loving, deeply moving, often troubling book.... Highly recommended.

Library Journal

This is an exciting book. Montgomery provides an outstanding popularized synthesis of a long-term, close-range study of large primates.... A splendid, well-written account that will draw in readers unfamiliar with the research projects as well as those who have been following them through the years.

Booklist

Fascinating.... Montgomery writes with a warm empathy for these innovators.... Artfully braided.

Smithsonian magazine

A spell-binding tribute.... Few readers will be able to resist Montgomerys tale.... Montgomerys prose can be breathtaking.

San Francisco Examiner

Most of us would not look back until we had left the jungles of Borneo far behind, but for Birut Galidkas, it was all in a days work.... Her career and that of the other two ape ladiesJane Goodall and Dian Fosseyare reported in fascinating detail in this vividly written, provocative, triple biography.... Montgomerys focus is on the extraordinary sense of kinship these women felt with the apes, apparently on an almost human level.

The Buffalo News

A sensitive and revealing contribution to the legend of a unique scientific sisterhood.

Chicago Tribune

Montgomery presents a triple biography entwining facts about their lives and studies with information on the apes they observed. Montgomerys own similar research approach lends depth to a revealing coverage of the scientists involved in ape study.

Midwest Book Review

This is a book about how lovethe power that moves us beyond us and our own self-interest to form relationships with an othercan transform lives and worlds.... Author Montgomery brings an admirable grace and kindness to her treatment of the three womens lives and work, affording them, in many ways, the same dignity and respect they offered to the animals they observed and cared for so deeply.... It is worth reading simply as expert storytelling, animated by particular and passionate writing.

Cape Cod Times

A great novel usually contains fascinating characters, exciting stories, and interesting places. When nonfiction meets the same standards, well, it could be paradiseor the heart of darkness. Walking with theGreat Apes gives us some of both.... In addition to stories of love and tragedy, the descriptions of Africa help create that all-encompassing world that we usually encounter in novels.

Ft. Lauderdale Sun Sentinel

In her biographical portraits of these extraordinary female primatologists, the author rightly characterizes them as shamans who entered the nations of these animals with compassion, humility, and awe.... Now we can respond by supporting efforts to conserve these great apes.... Great book. Call your friends.

Brussats Book News

Excellent... entertaining and instructive.... Walking with the GreatApes is valuable for several reasons. It compares and contrasts the work of these primatologists. It introduces the reader to Birut Galdikas work with Indonesian orangutans (which never received the interest given Goodalls chimps and Fosseys gorillas). And it makes us think about how women may be defining scientific research.

Glouster Times

OTHER BOOKS BY SY MONTGOMERY

The Good Good Pig: The Extraordinary
Life of Christopher Hogwood

Journey of the Pink Dolphins:
An Amazon Quest

Search for the Golden Moon Bear:
Science and Adventure in Pursuit of a New Species

Spell of the Tiger:
The Man-Eaters of Sundarbans

The Curious Naturalist:
Natures Everyday Mysteries

The Wild Out Your Window

FOR CHILDREN

The Snake Scientist

The Man-Eaters of Sundarbans

Encantado: Pink Dolphin of the Amazon

Search for the Golden Moon Bear:
Science and Adventure in the Asian Tropics

The Tarantula Scientist

Quest for the Tree Kangaroo

Saving the Ghost of the Mountain:
An Expedition Among Snow Leopards in Mongolia

WALKING
WITH THE
GREAT APES

JANE GOODALL, DIAN FOSSEY,
BIRUT GALDIKAS

SY MONTGOMERY

CHELSEA GREEN PUBLISHING
WHITE RIVER JUNCTION, VERMONT

Copyright 1991, 2009 by Sy Montgomery
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
To request permission to reproduce from this book, contact Chelsea Green Publishing.

Originally published by Houghton Mifflin Company, 1991.
This edition published by Chelsea Green Publishing, 2009.
Manufactured in the United States of America.
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Our Commitment to Green Publishing
Chelsea Green sees publishing as a tool for cultural change and ecological stewardship. We strive to align our book manufacturing practices with our editorial mission and to reduce the impact of our business enterprise in the environment. We print our books and catalogs on chlorine-free recycled paper, using soy-based inks whenever possible. This book may cost slightly more because we use recycled paper, and we hope youll agree that its worth it. Chelsea Green is a member of the Green Press Initiative (www.greenpressinitiative.org), a nonprofit coalition of publishers, manufacturers, and authors working to protect the worlds endangered forests and conserve natural resources. Walking with the Great Apes was printed on 55-lb. Natures Natural, an FSC-certified, 30-percent postconsumer-waste recycled paper supplied by Thomson-Shore.

Chelsea Green edition

The previous edition included the following
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Montgomery, Sy.
Walking with the great apes: Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, Birut Galdikas / Sy Montgomery.
p. cm.
A Peter Davison book.
Includes bibliographical references.
eBook ISBN: 978-1-60358-244-5
1. Goodall, Jane, date. 2. Fossey, Dian. 3. Galdikas, Birut Marija Filomena. 4. ApesBehaviorResearch. 5. Women primatologists Biography. 6. PrimatologistsBiography. 1. Title.