Ivory's Ghosts: The White Gold of History and the Fate of Elephants
Written by John Frederick Walker
Narrated by David Colacci
4/5
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About this audiobook
“[A] tour de force examination of the history of ivory . . . and the demise of the elephant and human decency in the process of this unholy quest.” —The Huffington Post
Praised for the nuance and sensitivity with which it approaches one of the most fraught conservation issues we face today, John Frederick Walker’s Ivory’s Ghosts tells the astonishing story of the power of ivory through the ages, and its impact on elephants. Long before gold and gemstones held allure, ivory came to be prized in every culture of the world—from ancient Egypt to nineteenth-century America to modern Japan—for its beauty, rarity, and ability to be finely carved. But the beauty came at an unfathomable cost.
Walker lays bare the ivory trade’s cruel connection with the slave trade and the increasing slaughter of elephants in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By the 1980s, elephant poaching reached levels that threatened the last great herds of the African continent, and led to a worldwide ban on the ancient international trade in tusks. But the ban has failed to stop poaching—or the emotional debate over what to do with the legitimate and growing stockpiles of ivory recovered from elephants that die of natural causes.
“Ivory’s Ghost is essential reading for anyone concerned with conservation and with the tenuous future of one of the most magnificent creatures our earth has ever seen.” —George B. Schaller, author of A Naturalist and Other Beast
John Frederick Walker
John Frederick Walker is the author of the highly praised A Certain Curve of Horn: The Hundred-Year Quest for the Giant Sable Antelope of Angola. His work has appeared in The New York Times, National Geographic Traveler, Wildlife Conservation, and many other publications.
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Reviews for Ivory's Ghosts
8 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Incredibly sad, the greed and corruption…. To make chopsticks and back scratcher… beautiful elephants❤️
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A readable and engaging history of the use and allure of ivory in human history and how the fate of elephants both has been affected by ivory's popularity and has influenced the use and availability of the material. Also, how ivory was bound up in the African slave trade and the development history of Africa. The author contemplates the current conservation situation in Africa and the varying viewpoints on whether to use ivory to fund conservation or to ban it to protect elephants from poaching. Enlightening and enjoyable.