Ancestral Passions: The Leakey Family and the Quest for Humankind's Beginnings
looks different". says The New York Times Book Review. This fascinating biography of the "First Family" of anthropology reveals how their discoveries, collaborations, and rivalries contributed to our own knowledge of the origins of humankind. Includes 50 photos.\ \ The First Family of anthropology--Louis, Mary and Richard Leakey--has dominated this science as no other family in history ever has--and has laid the foundations for much of what is known about the origins...
Search in google:
In this fascinating and authoritative work, acclaimed science writer Virginia Morell brings to vivid life the famous and infamous Leakey family, pioneers in the field of paleoanthropology: Louis Leakey, the patriarch, who persisted through initial scientific failures and scandal-ridden divorce to achieve spectacular success in digs throughout East Africa; Mary, his second wife, who worked alongside Louis as they made their outstanding discoveries at Olduvai Gorge and elsewhere; and Richard, their son, who ascended to the top of the field in his parents' wake, only to be threatened with both near-fatal illness and fierce professional rivalry. Morell transports us into the world of these compelling personalities, demonstrating how a small clan of highly talented and fiercely competitive people came to dominate an entire field of science and to contribute immeasurably to our understanding of the origins of humanity. Publishers Weekly Born in Kenya, Louis Leakey (1903- 1972), son of a dynamic missionary, grew up among Kikuyu natives. At Cambridge in 1923, a rugby injury left him with post-traumatic epilepsy, necessitating a prolonged leave that marked the beginning of his fossil-hunting career. In 1933, one month after his first wife, Frida, gave birth to their son Colin, Louis announced that he was leaving her for one of his students, Mary Nicol. Over the next four decades, the husband-and-wife Leakey team made stunning discoveries of hominid fossils that supported Louis's theory that humankind originated in Africa and was millions of years older than most experts had assumed. In a revelatory biography that strips away the aura surrounding a legendary family, Oregon-based science writer Morell maintains that by the late 1950s, the Leakey marriage had deteriorated into a business partnership. Louis had extramarital affairs and fell ardently in love with his young protgs, chimpanzee expert Jane Goodall and gorilla-watcher Dian Fossey. His son Richard, by this account, had a bitter professional rivalry with his domineering father and, fearing that Louis would try to ease him out, kept from him his 1968 diagnosis of terminal kidney disease, which he overcame with a kidney transplant operation in 1980. Morell balances grand scientific adventure with personal chronicle in an extraordinary group portrait that was written with the family's cooperation yet is not authorized. Photos. Newbridge Book Club alternate. (Aug.)
Chapter 1Kabete13Chapter 2From Cambridge to Olduvai26Chapter 3Laying Claim to the Earliest Man48Chapter 4Louis and Mary68Chapter 5Disaster at Kanam80Chapter 6Olduvai's Bounty94Chapter 7Consequences105Chapter 8Cloak-and-Dagger121Chapter 9Race for the Miocene137Chapter 10A Life in the Sediments152Chapter 11Louis and Kenyatta163Chapter 12"Our Man"175Chapter 13Fame, Fortune, and Zinj185Chapter 14Mary's Dig197Chapter 15Murder and Mayhem210Chapter 16The Human with Ability225Chapter 17Chimpanzees and Other Loves237Chapter 18Kichard Makes His Move252Chapter 19A Girl for the Gorillas263Chapter 20To the Omo274Chapter 21Breaking Away289Chapter 22Richard Strikes Oil299Chapter 23Mining Hominids at Olduvai309Chapter 24Dearest Dian320Chapter 25Father and Son333Chapter 26Jackpot at Koobi Fora342Chapter 27Misadventure at Calico358Chapter 28An Unstoppable Man372Chapter 29Roar of the Old Lion385Chapter 30An end and a Beginning401Chapter 31The Best Bones412Chapter 32The Gladiators' Clash423Chapter 33On the Trail of Homo Erectus433Chapter 34Mother and Son445Chapter 35A New Contender459Chapter 36The Name Game470Chapter 37Footprints for the Mantelpiece482Chapter 38Battling over Bones491Chapter 39Richard Reborn503Chapter 40"How Very Human"517Chapter 41Grande Dame of Archeology532Chapter 42A New Challenge539Epilogue552Appendix555Notes557Bibliography609Index619
\ Publishers Weekly\ - Publisher's Weekly\ Born in Kenya, Louis Leakey (1903- 1972), son of a dynamic missionary, grew up among Kikuyu natives. At Cambridge in 1923, a rugby injury left him with post-traumatic epilepsy, necessitating a prolonged leave that marked the beginning of his fossil-hunting career. In 1933, one month after his first wife, Frida, gave birth to their son Colin, Louis announced that he was leaving her for one of his students, Mary Nicol. Over the next four decades, the husband-and-wife Leakey team made stunning discoveries of hominid fossils that supported Louis's theory that humankind originated in Africa and was millions of years older than most experts had assumed. In a revelatory biography that strips away the aura surrounding a legendary family, Oregon-based science writer Morell maintains that by the late 1950s, the Leakey marriage had deteriorated into a business partnership. Louis had extramarital affairs and fell ardently in love with his young protgs, chimpanzee expert Jane Goodall and gorilla-watcher Dian Fossey. His son Richard, by this account, had a bitter professional rivalry with his domineering father and, fearing that Louis would try to ease him out, kept from him his 1968 diagnosis of terminal kidney disease, which he overcame with a kidney transplant operation in 1980. Morell balances grand scientific adventure with personal chronicle in an extraordinary group portrait that was written with the family's cooperation yet is not authorized. Photos. Newbridge Book Club alternate. (Aug.)\ \ \ \ \ Library JournalA science writer for the New York Times Magazine and other journals celebrates the leading family in anthropology.\ \
