Ghosts of Tsavo : Stalking the Mystery Lions of East Africa |  | Author: Phillip Caputo
Publisher: National Geographic
Category: Book
List Price: $16.00
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Rating:  18 reviews
Sales Rank: 722,106
Media: Paperback
Pages: 288
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.8
ISBN: 0792241002
Dewey Decimal Number: 599.757096762
EAN: 9780792241003
ASIN: 0792241002
Publication Date: June 1, 2003
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Product Description
Accompanied by a photographer, two scientists, and a few armed rangers, Philip Caputo set out through the forbidding plains Tsavo in search of Africa's most feared and efficient killers—massive maneless lions with a man-eating reputation. Over the past century, speculation about the ghostlike killers has gone unanswered, although recent studies suggest that the maneless lions may constitute a feline missing link between modern lions and their prehistoric ancestors. Therein lies the quest driving the expedition to find a scientific explanation for these fierce creatures and why they occasionally prey on humans. This vivid narrative of a scientific journey, available for the first time in paperback, is a riveting work from one of America's finest writers.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 18
 Well done, both exciting and balanced. June 29, 2002
Sore back (Summit, NJ USA)
10 out of 12 found this review helpful
Watch for The Ghosts of Tsavo to find a well-deserved spot on the best-seller lists. Caputo blends one bit travelogue with a splash of John McPhee, frappes it with some exciting writing, then serves it over the rocks of some hard scientific facts. This is a yarn, but a great one. The prologue is, hands down, the best story of someone hunting a man eating lion I have ever read. But this is not the "Jaguars Clawed My Flesh" school of big cat writing. His is a journey of exploration of the old school, similar to an expedition in the 19th Century from the Field Museum, which inspired Caputo as a child. Scientists will be happy to see he balances all of this with reason. Romantics will be happy to see he balances science with emotion. He has a gift, too, of beginning a personal rant on a point of politics and philosphy, and then doubling back on himself and to laugh at himself. He explores myths and explodes myths. Yet there is a romantic side to him that values them and the unknown. A good read, good reporting. Buy it, if the theme appeals to you at all, or if you ever looked up, as Caputo did as a child, at the great stuffed cats in museums.
The blend of science and adventure here makes for a riveting read November 7, 2005
Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Philip Caputo's Ghosts Of Tsavo: Stalking The Mystery Lions Of East Africa blends travelogue with nature in telling of the author's journey to Kenya's Tsavo National Park on foot with his guides, then in companionship with two scientists who seek close encounters with the big cats. Are the maneless lions found in Tsavo a subspecies of African lion, and a missing link? These lions are especially fierce, and the blend of science and adventure here makes for a riveting read.
A Multi-Dimensional Mystery February 10, 2009
Tracy Fox (Illinois)
I put off reading Philip Caputo's Ghosts of Tsavo because it begins with a long recounting of Wayne Hosek's killing of the man-eating lions, Ghost and Darkness. Pushing further into the text, I found a wonderful stockpile of first class nature writing, safari lore, scientific examination of what exactly constitutes a species, and philosophizing on the dichotomy between the mysteries of nature and the science that seeks to explain them.
The book centers on the author's quest to learn whether the maneless lions of Tsavo National Park in Kenya are, in fact, a distinct species from their plains-dwelling maned cousins. Philip Caputo makes his first journey to Tsavo with an eccentric English guide and leaves convinced the maneless lions with a taste for human flesh are the direct descendents of Paleolithic cave-dwelling lions. At the Field Museum in Chicago, he digs deeper into the research of a self-taught big cat expert (formally employed as an ornithological specimen preparer). Then he returns to Africa with a scientific research team who take a narrow view of this speculative research. The varying viewpoints, coupled with the author's near-death experience and wild ramblings induced by malaria drugs, make for a compelling story and an atmospheric introduction to East Africa's charismatic cats.
A very good read May 15, 2010
Dee from Gary, Indiana (USA)
I read the book by John Patterson, who killed the original maneaters of Tsavo (Did you all see the "Ghost and the Darkness") and this book was even better. A very good read and deserves five stars.
Ghosts of Tsavo March 26, 2003
1 out of 14 found this review helpful
If you have ambitions to be a writer,avoid reading this book since
it,ll just fill you with envy. Every word has the right nuance,the
sentences run like limpid streams , the gentle humor pervasive
and the opinions expressed thoughtful. Can anyone, for instance,
argue with the statement that nearly every problem that we face
is caused or aggravated by the fact that are just too many of us.
The excellence of this book should come as no surprise since
the author is none other than ex-marine who also gave us the best
account by a combatant (on our side) of the Great Crusade in Vietnam.
The subject of the present book are the lions of Tsavo who are
less manely but defintely more manly than the other members
of their species and have developed a taste for the human flesh
and their appetizers include not only the skeletal locals but also
an occasional tourist who had loved nature not wisely but only
too well. Two groups of American academics are engaged in a bitter
fight over the reasons behind the maneaters obvious lack of
etiquette each trying to capture the lion,s share of grants,honors,etc and finally the holiest of all grails-publication in a "refereed" journal. All of this happens
within the shouting distance of the hellhole of Nairobi, where,
if there is a just God, the final resting place for all of those
opposed to population control.Nairobi is also the focal point for the activities of the Christ like figure of rock and roll artist and father of six Bono who wants us
to pay for the sexual recklessness of the locals (Bono,s millions
do not enter into the equation) while he residing in one of his mansions ponders new scams to prove his moral superiority. Never mind the insignificance of
the subjet matter since Captuto can write about yesetrday,s
leftovers and make them interesting. After reading this delightful
book my own take is that there is incontrovertible evidence
that human thugs commit their bestialities because of lack of
"self esteem" (it used to be poverty) and it,ll be a great project
for the dogooding bleeding heart animal rights activists to go
to Tsavo and feed Minoxidill to the lions so they could lead
peaceful lives under assumed manes. In the process some of
the actvistis may become canapes for the lions and that,ll
be just wonderful.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 18
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