Adult Non-Fiction "Between Man & Beast" by Monte Reel

Between Man and Beast: An Unlikely Explorer, the Evolution Debates, and the African Adventure That Took the Victorian World by Storm by Monte Reel
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Between Man and Beast" is a great little book about a little known explorer named Paul Du Chaillu who, in 1856, more or less stumbled his way through Gabon, Africa into the dense interior where few whites had ever been. It was on this journey that he spied his first gorilla. A beast that the natives feared greatly and one that changed the course of his life.
The story follows Du Chaillu to Victorian England where the great debate of evolution was just getting heated up. In steps Du Chaillu and his stuffed gorillas which look disturbingly human. The debate roils, his story is called into question and despite friends such as Charles Darwin and Sir Richard Burton, Du Chaillu's integrity is called into question. Bloodied but unbowed, Du Chaillu returns to Africa less a stumbler more a explorer only to reclaim his place among the scientific community.
Woven into this story is the moral/ethical stain of Victorian attitudes toward Africa and Africans. Monte Reel, the author, does a great job of placing the story in its historical context. Never shying away from the prejudices of the era. Du Chaillu, according to his writings, was one of the rare explorers not there to exploit African but to learn from them. Yet even the noblest intentions can be deadly as on his second trip to the interior he brought with him small pox, which spread like, well, small pox. He was barred from entering certain villages as word proceeded him that there was a white man bringing death.
More time could have been spent on gorillas, the beast at the heart of the story, but I guess I can read Dian Fossey if I need to know more.

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