The Adventures and Misadventures of Peter Beard in Africa

As comfortable in the bush as he is in Manhattan's hottest nightclubs, Peter Beard is a throwback to an earlier, more adventurous age. Photographer, writer, diarist, anthropologist, historian, and socialite - he has led the kind of wild, rugged life fictionalized by Conrad and Hemingway. A man of extremes, excesses, and contradictions, Beard has made Kenya his home for more than thirty years. And in those years he has had one continuous obsession: chronicling the devastation of nature in East Africa. His obsession has taken many forms - from hunting crocodiles to photographing the die-off of untold thousands of starving elephants. He has made his vision public via critically acclaimed films and books - among them Eyelids of Morning and The End of the Game. This book illuminates both the man and his powerful, ever more urgent message. The Adventures and Misadventures of Peter Beard in Africa is part biography, part social history. Beard's dramatic life has been matched lockstep by the dramas that have been transforming East Africa since his arrival. From his front-row seat - Hog Ranch, his 45-acre encampment overlooking the Ngong Hills - he has watched a land of hunters and nomads become an urbanized sprawl, where the annihilation of animal populations has been matched only by the uncontrolled growth of the human population. Beard has been a player in this drama - he has risked beating and imprisonment at the hands of the local government and political confrontation with international organizations. Throughout, he has remained a charismatic and controversial character. His life, and Hog Ranch, are filled with glamorous figures: he was friend to Karen Blixen, confidant of Francis Baconand Andy Warhol, discoverer of the model Iman. His story, as told here by Jon Bowermaster, is ultimately East Africa's story - a look into a world irrevocably changed. Bowermaster's searching text and Beard's own classic and unpublished photographs give shape and texture to both this intriguing man and the country that is his passion.