|
A landmark book on Africa revisited
The origins, history, and prospects of big game in Africa
Researched, photographed, and compiled over 20 years, Peter Beard's End
of the Game tells the tale of the enterprisers, explorers, missionaries,
and big-game hunters whose quests for adventure and "progress"
were to change the face of Africa in the 20th century. This landmark volume
is assembled from hundreds of historical photographs and writings, starting
with the building of the Mombasa Railroad ("The Lunatic Line")
and the opening-up of darkest Africa. The stories behind the heroic figures
in Beard's work—Theodore Roosevelt, Frederick Courtney Selous,
Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen), Denys Finch-Hatton (the romantic hero of
Out of Africa), Philip Percival, J. A. Hunter, Ernest Hemingway,
and J. H. Patterson (who became famous as the relentless hunter of the
"Man-Eating Lions of Tsavo")—are all contextualized by Beard's
own photographs of the enormous region. Shot in the 1960s and '70s in
the Tsavo lowlands during the elephant-habitat crisis and then in Uganda
parks, Beard's studies of elephant and hippo population dynamics document
the inevitable overpopulation and starvation of tens of thousands of elephants
and rhinos.
Originally published in 1965 and updated in 1977, this classic
is resurrected by TASCHEN with rich duotone reproduction and a new foreword
by internationally renowned travel and fiction writer Paul Theroux. Touching
on themes such as distance from nature, density and stress, loss of common
sense, and global emergencies, this seminal picture history of eastern
Africa in the first half of the 20th century shows us the origins of the
wildlife crisis on the continent, a phenomenon which bears a remarkable
resemblance to the overpopulation and climate crises we face today.
About the editor and author:
Born in New York City in 1938, Peter Beard began taking
photographs and keeping diaries from early childhood. By the time he graduated
from Yale University, he had developed a keen interest in Africa. Throughout
the 1960s and ’70s he worked in Tsavo Park, the Aberdares, and Lake Rudolf
in Kenya’s northern frontier. His first show came in 1975 at the Blum
Helman Gallery, and was followed in 1977 by the landmark installation
of elephant carcasses, burned diaries, taxidermy, African artifacts, books
and personal memorabilia at New York’s International Center for Photography.
In addition to creating original artwork, Beard has also worked as a Vogue
photographer and collaborated on projects with Andy Warhol, Andrew Wyeth,
Richard Linder, Terry Southern, Truman Capote, and Francis Bacon. In 1996,
shortly after Beard was trampled by an elephant, his first major retrospective
took place at the Centre National de la Photographie in Paris, France,
followed by shows in Berlin, London, Milan, Stockholm, Tokyo, and Vienna,
among others. He lives in New York City, Long Island, and Kenya with his
wife, Nejma, and daughter, Zara.
About the contributing author:
Paul Theroux went to Africa as a teacher in 1963. He ran a school
in Malawi, and then taught at Makerere University in Uganda, where he
also worked as a journalist, traveling throughout East and Central Africa.
He published three novels with African settings – Fong and the Indians,
Girls at Play, and Jungle Lovers, as well as short stories. He is the
author of many other novels and travel books, including Dark Star Safari:
Overland from Cairo to Cape Town (2002).
|