African Game Trails: An Account of the African Wanderings of an American Hunter-Naturalist
by Theodore Roosevelt
- Used
- very good
- Hardcover
- first
- Condition
- Very good
- Seller
-
Pleasanton, California, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
Synopsis
Theodore Roosevelt declined to run for reelection as President of the United States in 1908. Partly as a vacation, partly to avoid the press as his friend Taft set up a new administration, (and partly for self-promotion), T.R. set out for Africa to hunt big game and collect specimens for a future exposition at the Smithsonian. Scribner's magazine underwrote the trip by paying $50,000 for twelve articles. It is these articles that eventually became African Game Trails.In April 1909, T.R. and his son Kermit arrived in Mombasa. With an entourage of 250 porters and guides, the Roosevelts spent a year snaking across British East Africa, into the Belgian Congo and back to the Nile, ending in Khartoum. This narrative is a straightforward chronicle of the trip, laced with tips on tracking and hunting African big game, and observations and opinions about Africa and its peoples, many of which are politically incorrect by today's standards. T.R. believed in the inferiority of most African peoples and recommended they be civilized by European rule.For the most part, however, African Game Trails is a book about big game hunting. Over the course of the year, the Roosevelts collected (i.e. shot) 1,100 specimens, including eleven elephants, twenty rhinoceroses, seventeen lions, twenty zebra, seven hippopotamuses, seven giraffes, and six buffalo. This was a different era, to be sure. In a way that makes the account all the more valuable. African Games Trails is well-written and rolls along easily, like a good, long, after-dinner story. It is also a striking record of early 20th-century African culture and natural history. It is great fun and highly recommended for the non-squeamish.
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Details
- Bookseller
- The Book Lair, ABAA (US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- BL-002562
- Title
- African Game Trails: An Account of the African Wanderings of an American Hunter-Naturalist
- Author
- Theodore Roosevelt
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- Used - Very good
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Publisher
- Scribner's
- Place of Publication
- New York
- Date Published
- 1910
Terms of Sale
The Book Lair, ABAA
About the Seller
The Book Lair, ABAA
About The Book Lair, ABAA
We also buy and sell ephemera, photography, manuscript material, diaries and letter archives, and business archives in any field. If it tells a strong story, we're interested.
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- Gilt
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- Cloth
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This Book’s Categories
- Politics, Government and Law Law Enforcement Political Biography
- Countries & Cultures Africa
- Countries & Cultures North America United States Americana
- History
- Nature Natural History
- Politics, Government and Law
- Sports & Games Hunting, Fishing & Shooting Hunting Big Game Hunting
- Travel & Exploration True Adventure
- Travel & Exploration Travel
- Sports & Games Hunting, Fishing & Shooting
- Biography & Essays Biography & Memoirs