Jane Goodall: The Woman Who Redefined Man (Hardcover)

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Key Phrases: valerie jane, innocent killers, little hugo, National Geographic, Louis Leakey, Land Rover (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this engaging but overlong biography, Peterson (The Deluge and the Ark) details the life of the woman who revolutionized primate studies. In 1960, at age 26, Goodall was sent by paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey to the Gombe Stream Chimpanzee Reserve in Tanganyika (now Tanzania) to study the chimps. With no scientific training and no precedents to follow, but with plenty of courage and the conviction that chimpanzees have individual personalities, she lived with the animals. Patiently observing them, she discovered that they eat meat, engage in warfare and use tools—a revelation that persuaded Leakey that it was necessary to redefine "man," because the use of tools had always been thought to be uniquely human. Peterson provides colorful descriptions of day-to-day life at Gombe and Goodall's interaction with the chimps, and ably portrays her relationship with Leakey, the National Geographic Society (which sponsored much of her work), her two marriages, her reaction to her celebrity and her ventures as an activist for the well-being of chimpanzees in captivity and the wild. However, exhaustive details of Goodall's childhood, her youthful loves, the activities of her infant son and the lives of her students and fellow researchers become wearisome. 16 pages of photos not seen by PW. (Nov. 15)
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From Booklist

*Starred Review* Born in England in 1934, the eldest daughter of a marvelously competent mother and a race-car-driver father, Jane Goodall was a contemplative child who loved animals and Doctor Doolittle books and possessed, as Peterson, her first biographer, astutely observes, "high energy, a natural and happy competitiveness, a capacity for intense and extended concentration, a surprising attraction to risk, and an unusual tolerance for physical stress," qualities that proved essential to her uniquely demanding and influential life as a pioneering field scientist and international activist. Biographies of the living are tricky, but Peterson, who collaborated with Goodall on Visions of Caliban (1993) and edited her two letter collections, makes judicious use of sources both archival and human. And Goodall, as beautiful as she is brilliant and intrepid, learned more than 40 years ago-when the visionary paleontologist Louis Leakey set her (then a secretarial-school graduate) on the path to scientific discovery-that to bring her knowledge about animals to the world, she has to feed people's curiosity about herself. And what a story of poise, conviction, and sacrifice Peterson tells, from Goodall's revelatory relationships with the chimpanzees of Gombe along Lake Tanganyika to her struggles for funding and autonomy, her many suitors and two difficult marriages, and her arduous work to portray chimpanzees as complex individuals with minds and emotions akin to our own. Peterson vividly and significantly enriches our understanding of Goodall as a scientist, spiritual thinker, and humanist. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 752 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1 edition (November 15, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395854059
• ISBN-13: 978-0395854051
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.5 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #424,686 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A riveting biography of a great scientist, December 2, 2006

By	May Welland - See all my reviews

Although many people know who Jane Goodall is (sometimes confusing her with Dian Fossey), she has become a kind of myth. Films and books have portrayed her as having near-saintly status and a squeaky-clean character, which, though enormously charismatic, has been oversimplified in the media. This book shows her fascinating development from a dreamy child with an active imagination, a menagerie of pets, a talent for leadership in her self-started science club, and not much interest in school ("The Naturalist"), to the more familiar young chimpanzee researcher who fell under the spell of the intelligent apes of Gombe and who also had a series of romantic and professional adventures during a brilliant career ("The Scientist"), to the person who has inspired people all over the world to work to preserve the planet's animals and people, and to dream of a better future ("The Activist"). This book shows her funny, mischievous, thoughtful, and romantic sides, revealing a woman who struggled to make her way in a demanding field and who made enormous personal sacrifices in a great cause. The book is beautifully written, warm, lovingly detailed--a splendid portrait of a magnificent person.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A truly great book!, December 31, 2006

By	N. Ottosen - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The fact that not only Dr Jane Goodall, but also her family, friends and colleagues gave full cooperation to Dale Peterson in his authorship of this masterful biography, makes this heavily detailed work quite definitive (aside from, or read in addition to, those works written by Goodall herself), and a treat for those interested in her life and work. Dr Goodall's buoyant personality, enthusiasm, and dedication are rendered so clearly, especially in the descriptions of Jane's activism on behalf of chimpanzees, humans and the environment alike, that one cannot help but like her and feel impelled to action.

While remaining respectfully, appropriately, discreet (especially in describing her relationships with her first and second husbands), the personal details that are given are perfectly sufficient to understand how they shaped her life's course. Dr Goodall is, after all, very much a living, breathing person and therefore entitled to as much privacy as her celebrity will allow. Any more detail or airing of dirty laundry (if it existed) would have been tactless at worst and unnecessary at best. In all other areas - personal and professional - the details abound. However, I never considered such generosity of detail to be overwhelming or superfluous. It all served to create incredibly lucid impressions and pictures, and aided in understanding the subject all the better.

I have been reading about Jane Goodall and her work for many years and found all of the previously undisclosed information in this biography - her family history; the extent of the early financial difficulties in establishing and maintaining the Gombe Stream Research Centre; details about the kidnapping of the Gombe students in 1975, and the resulting ransom situation - all utterly fascinating. Upon finishing the last page of this excellent biography I was left feeling an even greater fondness for Dr Goodall than I had previously experienced by reading her many books and watching her television specials.

I also highly recommend Dr Goodall's "In the Shadow of Man"; "The Chimpanzees of Gombe: Patterns of Behavior" (if you can track down a copy!); and "Through a Window: My Thirty Years with the Chimpanzees of Gombe". In addition, I greatly enjoyed the two editions of Jane Goodall's autobiography in letters, edited and with chapter introductions by Dale Peterson: "Africa in my Blood" and "Beyond Innocence".

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great read - interesting all the way through, December 11, 2006

By	A. Jentleson (Washington, D.C.) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

A thoroughly enjoyable and engaging account of the life of an amazing woman. Most of what I knew about Goodall before reading this book was based on the various myths that exist about her life -- I am glad to know that the truth is far more interesting and compelling than the myths! I highly recommend this to anyone interested in one of the most fascinating lives of the last century.