An Inordinate Fondness for Beetles: Campfire Conversations with Alfred Russel Wallace on People and Nature Based on Common Travel in the Malay ... of the Orangutan and the Bird of Paradise

An Inordinate Fondness for Beetles follows the Victorian-era explorations of Alfred Russel Wallace through Indonesia Singapore and Malaysia. While Wallace is recognized as co-discoverer of the theory of natural selection (and was perhaps deliberately sidelined by Darwin) he was also an edgy social commentator and a voracious collector of natural productions--he caught skinned and pickled 125660 specimens including 212 new species of birds and 900 new species of beetles. Sochaczewski has created an innovative form of storytelling combining incisive biography and personal travelogue. He examines themes about which Wallace cared deeply--womens power why boys leave home the need to collect our relationship with other species humanitys need to control nature and how this leads to nature destruction arrogance the role of ego and greed white-brown and brown-brown colonialism serendipity passion mysticism--and interprets them through his own filter with layers of humor history social commentary and sometimes outrageous personal tales.