Concord Monitor: Biographer of world’s foremost conservationist to speak in New Hampshire

A good biography shows readers the importance of a person they didn’t even know existed. “Homesick for a World Unknown” by Miriam Horn, is one such work, and carries extra weight here because the subject lives in New Hampshire. Horn’s book is the first biography of George B. Schaller, who is often described as the most important field conservationist of our time even though he’s largely unknown to the general public. Schaller all but invented the idea of studying large mammals for long periods in the wild and was the mentor of such world-renowned wildlife scientists as Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey.

Among other things, Schaller’s work on three continents led him to sound the earliest alarms about the “great dying” afflicting the world, an alarm that helped preserve Congo’s mountain gorillas, India’s tigers and China’s pandas in the wild. He wrote a dozen books and scores of articles about his work and the need for conservation, but his avoidance of traditional publicity has given him a very low profile.

Horn, an award-winning writer whose earlier books deal with the realities of modern conservation, said she approached Schaller to do a biography after repeatedly hearing wildlife biologists say they were astonished nobody had written one already.

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