From Botswana to the Bering Sea: My Thirty Years With National Geographic [Hardcover]

Thomas Canby (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 1998

"National Geographic" has been called a window on the world and a passport to adventure. Each month an estimated forty million people in 190 countries open its pages and are transported to exotic realms that delight the eye and mind. Such widespread renown gives the magazine's writers an almost magical access to people and happenings, as doors that are closed to the rest of the journalistic world open wide.Thomas Y. Canby was fortunate to be a "Geographic" writer and science editor from 1961 to 1991, a time during which the Society's ventures and size grew by leaps and bounds and the resources available to staff were seemingly limitless. In "From Botswana to the Bering Sea," he gives readers an on-the-ground look at the life of a "National Geographic" field staffer and an insider's view of the fascinating dynamics within the magazine's editorial chambers.Canby's assignments dealt largely with issues of global concern, and his travels took him to the farthest reaches of the planet. This book gives the reader the visas and tickets to share in Canby's experiences -- from a Filipino rice harvest capped by a feast of deep-fried rats, to impoverished villages of Asia and Africa gripped by the world's most widespread famine, to seal hunting and dog sledding with Eskimos in the Canadian high Arctic. Readers match wits with paranoid guardians of the secret Soviet space program; skirt land mines in the flaming oil fields of Kuwait; and dodge death while scuba diving to an archaeological site in a Florida sinkhole. The book also gives insight into the magazine's inner workings: how article subjects are chosen; how writers are assigned and interact; how prolonged trips to impossibly remotedestinations are planned; how staffers operate in the field.Working for "National Geographic" has been called "the best job in the world." "From Botswana to the Bering Sea" describes that unique job, and answers from first-hand knowledge the question Canby and his colleagues are so often asked: "So, what is it like to work for National Geographic?"

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Beginning in the glossy Kennedy era, Thomas Y. Canby traveled the world, creating texts that could stand up to his magazine's famously arresting images. From Botswana to the Bering Sea: My Thirty Years with National Geographic is a memoir written with a journalist's flair, a trained eye for detail and a determination to get the story right, whether remembering the author's global trackings of rats or his probings of the causes and horrific human toll of African famine. Photos and maps, not seen by PW. (Island/Shearwater, $24.95 288p 1-55963-517-7) "It's the invasive ones we have to watch out for, the ones that proliferate out of control, degrade our ecosystems, make us ill, and devour our crops." Not all imported flora and fauna are dangerous, but in Alien Invasion: America's Battle with Non-Native Animals and Plants, veteran nature writer Robert S. Devine shows us how insidious they can be, from viruses that repeatedly destroy papaya crops to the sea lamprey, which "kills other fish by clamping on with its big, vampire mouth." Devine also explains what's being done to combat these alien menaces. (National Geographic, $24 288p ISBN
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

The life of a National Geographic staff writer``the choicest job in the known universe''and a disarming and especially frank look at intramural politics from one who considers himself ``totally a Geographic man.'' For 31 years Canby was a writer and a science editor at the magazine with the yellow border. His assignments are interesting enoughjourneys to Inuitland and to Kuwait while it burned, probings into El Nio and famine and rats, an ambivalent stint as a disaster journalist after the San Francisco earthquakebut he gloats a bit too often about his first-class travel arrangements and the wads of traveler's checks the society dispenses. Wending its way through the account of field days are Canby's insights into the daily affairs at the magazine: the unfolding of an article as it goes from idea to print, the strengths andweaknesses of editors and writers and the gods up there on the ninth floor, and a no-punches-pulled section on the firing of one editor who ran afoul of the governing board. In the end, Canby is still a company man, and in singing praise of the magazine he can go over the top. His comment that the magazine's contributors are given ``liberty to write in [their] own style,'' defies credibility: the magazine has one of the clearest and most identifiable editorial voices going. Still, Canby's field exploits make for enjoyable reading, and his detailing of the society's inner workings and turmoils will keep readers turning the pages. (photos and maps, not seen) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 287 pages
• Publisher: Island Press; 1 edition (May 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1559635177
• ISBN-13: 978-1559635172
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,080,014 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #47 in Books > History > Africa > Botswana
  • #79 in Books > Travel > Africa > Botswana

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An deftly written, engrossing, armchair tour of the world, July 5, 2000

By 

Frank Van Riper - See all my reviews

This review is from: From Botswana to the Bering Sea: My Thirty Years With National Geographic (Hardcover)

Tom Canby had the great good fortune of working for the National Geographic during that wonderful time when all the big glossy magazines and high-circulation newspapers were willing to spend money to bring information to their readers. This willingness to to be serious about news coverage gave this deft and sensitive writer the chance to roam the world and take the time necessary to cover his beat (science) in depth and with a thoroughness almost unheard of today, when even great institutions like National Geographic are nickel-and-diming to cut costs. From Botswana to the Bering Sea is the personal memoir of a gentle man and a gentleman. Canby would probably be the first to admit (as he, in fact, alludes in his book) that he is not the stereotype of the hardbitten tabloid news reporter. Instead he is an essayist of uncommon grace. This is a wonderful book.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Canby hits the mark for National Geographic fans., September 15, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: From Botswana to the Bering Sea: My Thirty Years With National Geographic (Hardcover)

If you like reading National Geographic, then you'll like reading Thomas Canby's book about his 30 years with the yellow border magazine. He recounts some of his favorite assignments, including glimpses behind the scenes, and the occasional personal note. My favorite is the rat assignment. After a day of chasing rats, he settles down for a few beers. After getting a good buzz, the fried rats are served and he and his friends dig in with gusto. Later, in writing the actual article, Canby details the rat feast but somehow fails to mention the beer.

Canby is an unabashed lover of National Geographic, making a number of references to the positive aspects of working for the magazine and the envy with which other writers view a National Geographic assignment. So, don't expect any revelations about the inner workings of the Society beyond those already published. Criticisms of management and the editorial staff are mild, and generally take the form of disagreement. The book does provide interesting insight into how story content was sometimes influenced by "mossbacks" on the Board of Trustees. There is also a brief but blistering appraisal of former editor John Oliver LaGorce, but this only reiterates and reinforces previous reports.

All in all, National Geographic fans will find this book a good middle-of-the-road look at how things work within the magazine. Canby does a pinch of bashing, a bushel of praising, and a ton of good old story writing-all in the National Geographic style.

4.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Reading, November 17, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: From Botswana to the Bering Sea: My Thirty Years With National Geographic (Hardcover)

This is not a review but an urgent request to find the most recent book published by Thomas Y. Canby, Sandy Spring Legacy. This is the legacy of a Quaker Village and tells the story of one of the oldest towns in the Maryland Piedmont, settled by the Quakers and others in the early 1700's. I am interested in finding this book as I once lived in this little Quaker Village forty years ago. Thank you for any leads you may have.