Ivory's Ghosts: The White Gold of History and the Fate of Elephants (Hardcover)

~ John Frederick Walker (Author)
Key Phrases: ivory buyer, ivory industry, piano keys and billiard balls, United States, New York, South Africa (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

With a mix of appalled testimony and meticulous research, Walker (A Certain Curve of Horn) traces the story of ivory from Paleolithic times to the present and the devastation the ivory trade has wrought on African and Asian elephants—by one estimate, 2.8 million were killed between 1850 and 1914. At the height of the 19th century craze for ivory—which included a savage dependence on slaves to transport tusks to African trading centers—it was used for sacred artifacts, piano keys, pistol grips, toothpicks and billiard balls. By the 1980s, poaching threatened the last herds in Africa, leading to a worldwide ban on international trade, but with unintended consequences from laws so restrictive no ivory could be sold at all. By 1994, nine African nations had stockpiled 100 tons of pickup ivory, harvested from elephants that had died a natural death. This great gift that the elephant leaves at the end of its life, writes Walker, should be sold to help conserve endangered herds, a controversial proposal that spotlights the deep divide between ardent supporters of continuing the ban and conservationists concerned about the future of the elephant, now more important than the treasure it supplies. 16 pages of illus. (Jan.)
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From Booklist

Author of a book about an endangered species (The Curve of the Horn: The Hundred-Year Quest for the Giant Sable Antelope of Angola, 2002), Walker surveys the plight of another, the African elephant, in this work. Nominally protected by an international prohibition of commerce in their tusks, elephants continue to be poached and, occasionally, legally killed. Walker’s review of the arguments by proponents (mainly African countries) and opponents (mainly Western conservationists) of permitting some level of trade in ivory caps his history of the material’s allures and applications throughout human history. Discussing artifacts from Roman times, Walker references evidence of the eradication of elephants from the Mediterranean rim caused by the appetite for ivory, a precursor of the industrial age’s devastating slaughter of elephants to meet the mass market for combs, billiard balls, and piano keys. Walker’s description of ivory hunters, dealers, and manufacturers shows the trade circa 1900; his accounts of anti-ivory activists and herd managers depict the trade today; and his work delivers an informative, all-around perspective on the elephant’s history at the hands of humans. --Gilbert Taylor

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press (January 6, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0871139952
• ISBN-13: 978-0871139955
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #635,473 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars About ivory, not elephants, August 11, 2009

By	D. J. Nardi "TurtleDom" (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I thought this book would focus more on elephants and the politics of the ivory trade. Instead, it focuses largely on the history of ivory and its uses, with limited focus on the elephants themselves. I feel like much of the book consists of quotes describing the "sensuous" texture of ivory why it was so wonderful. In fact, Walker seems almost blase about the impact of the ivory trade, and instead remarks that ivory is almost a "perfect" material for manufacturing piano keys, Japanese traditional seals, etc. Other parts of the history seem incomplete or disjointed. Sometimes Walker's anecdotes seem out of place or irrelevant. For example, do we really need to know the length and grooming of AMNH's Ross McPhee's beard?

At several key points, Walker's analysis of key debates is one-sided. Near the beginning of the book, he dismisses the notion that humans overhunted mammoths, causing their extinction. Granted, this is a topic of debate, but he doesn't even bother to present the significant evidence amounted for the proposition, or the fact that some scientists now believe cavemen may have killed mammoths en masse since mammoth meat couldn't be preserved for a long time. For more on that particular topic, check out Paul Martin's Twilight of the Mammoths: Ice Age Extinctions and the Rewilding of America (Organisms and Environments). Walker also dismisses the biologists who argued for a ban on the ivory trade in the late 1980s. He totally dismisses the effect of criminalizing the ivory trade on stigmatizing ivory and reducing demand. In fact, at times he seems to want the stigma reduced (such as saying he liked his ivory piano keys). Again, this is a complicated issue, but rather than presenting both sides he makes it seem as if conservation organizations were cynically following public opinion.

I prefer Martin Meredith's Elephant Destiny, which follows the history of human-elephant relations. In particular, Meredith's book follows a straight chronology with minimal interruption and focuses on elephants, with chapters on their biology and social relations. It also does a good job chronicling the debates between Ian Douglas-Hamilton and Ian Parker over elephant populations in the early 1980s - better that Ivory's Ghosts.

Also, check out the recent the Scientific America article on the ivory trade.