Beyond Innocence: An Autobiography in Letters, the Later Years

Jane Goodall is one of my personal heroines. Any time I might think that one person cannot make a difference and that I should just continue to sit and do nothing, I can read about Goodall and her singular and single-minded vision of changing the world. This volume of Goodall's autobiography consists of hundreds of her personal letters, adroitly gathered together and explained by the editor so that there is a cohesive whole. We follow her through years of expanding her work with chimpanzees at her original research facilities in Gombe (where, as a very young woman, she worked ALONE), to her expanding environmental empire, to her ceaseless lobbying, traveling, letter-writing, speech-making, and appeals to leaders throughout the world to help in her efforts to save her beloved chimps (our closest primate cousins), baboons, other wildlife, and especially the rain forests upon which these animals depend for life. Her letters show the private Jane, full of the joy of motherhood (she raised her only son, Hugo Jr., or "Grublin," in the wild in a childhood that had to be spectacular beyond belief, but was like any other mother worried about teething, late talking, naughtiness and refusal to do his math!), battling bouts of malaria while writing endless (it seems) books, proposals, thank-yous, acknowledgements, and so forth. We see her through the pain of divorce, a happy remarriage, and the horror of seeing her new husband die of inoperable cancer. We see her renewed efforts to save her beloved chimpanzees, and her first horrified visit to a lab, where she was reduced to kneeling in tears at the plight of captive apes treated like things rather than the sensitive creatures they are. The book ends in the late 90s, with Jane's latest conservation efforts still going strong. I was so intent and so wound up in her story that I immediately went to the Jane Goodall Institute Website to see what I could do in some small way to further her cause. But you don't have to be a conservationist to admire this strong, brilliant, single-minded and fabulous woman. This is a book for everyone, and I recommend it highly and unequivocally.

I didn't believe that a second volume of Jane Goodall's letters could be as good as the first (Africa in My Blood), but this one is even better. The first volume contains the better-known parts of her life: the young woman going out to Africa, her apprenticeship with Leakey and at Gombe, her courageous research and amazing discoveries about chimpanzee intelligence, tool use, and warfare. Less familiar but no less compelling is the story of her life-beyond-science, her new and powerful role as a citizen-activist for the preservation of endangered species and their fragile environments. In her efforts to educate the world about the plight of this species that shares so much genetic material with humans, Goodall has never flagged in her perseverance. Her efforts have taken her from the village schoolroom to the halls of congresses and government palaces all over the world, and her correspondence reflects the intensity of her political activity, her untiring attempts to make people see their planet anew and to assume responsibility for their environments, whether in Africa or in LA. At the same time that the second volume shows the world of her correspondence opening up to include a much wider audience, though, she still writes her chatty, witty, delightful letters to family and friends.Jane Goodall is a much more complex person than either her books or the popular conceptions of her, generated by the media, would suggest. These letters show a woman who endured considerable suffering and stress, who maintained her faith and optimism in the face of crushing realities, and who has inspired multitudes to change their views of Africa, of science, of women, and of chimpanzees, but in these letters you feel that she's at kitchen table in your house scribbling away, or that you've received a wonderful letter in your real, not virtual, mailbox. Read this book! You'll be surprised by what you find.

Many people may take up Beyond Innocence because they loved Africa in My Blood, because they think highly of Jane Goodall as a woman, scientist, and activist who commands an enormous presence in the world of animal and environmental studies. I came to the book, though, because of the writing, both the lucid, witty, warm letters themselves, with their brilliant details and insights, and also the superb editing and contextual work by Dale Peterson, who gives us the complete person, with her strengths and weaknesses, the myths and the truth. This is a literary achievement of the highest order, a poignant reminder of what we've lost in the era of electronic communication. Jane Goodall wrote constantly, and she wrote beautifully, and her letters reveal worlds and worlds--the worlds of her subjects, her subjectivity, and her readers. You will get a completely different Goodall here from the one you see in her books and in the biographies. This is an indispensable book, one that deserves to stand among the monuments of correspondence as a literary form.

Who has not heard of Jane Goodall and her life-long devotion, research and protection of chimpanzees? During the years Goodall has spent in Tanzania, she has lived a life many in today's society would have an extremely difficult time comprehending, let alone actually living. In this book, the reader learns through Goodall's letters about the inner persona of Jane Goodall, her personal blessings and tragedies. While this book is not written with the distinct powerful exuberance of "Africa in My Blood," I do prefer this one simply because to me it revealed more about the woman who lurks beneath the surface. She reveals her deep sense of purpose and her relentless devotion to the chimps shines through. She is, indeed, a woman with a mission. She is also a woman who, like the chimps she has studied for so many years, has come to understand the meaning of love, loss, hope, fear, happiness, heartbreak and enormous setbacks. Goodall's letter writing is superb, with eloquent English undertones which add to the book's quality and style. She has a knack for expressing herself in a poignant and impressive manner. One other book by the same author, also deserving of a five-star rating and highly recommended is "Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey."

This book continues the autobiography of Dr. Jane Goodall through her letters that began with Africa in My Blood. Dr. Goodall has been a prolific letter writer throughout her life, and this volume contains many interesting and revealing examples of her personal views. The book's strength is in taking you behind the scenes into events that are more briefly alluded to in her formal writing. The editor, Dale Peterson, has done an outstanding job of putting the letters in context and summarizing their material in useful ways. The editing is stronger than in Africa in My Blood. Despite the quality of the volume, I still prefer Africa in My Blood as a more moving and powerful expression of Dr. Goodall's life. In these letters, you will generally find her more reserved and distracted than in Africa in My Blood. I do recommend that you read this volume. You will add usefully to your knowledge of Dr. Goodall. To get some sense of how many letters Dr. Goodall has written, this book contains selections from over 2000 which contain a total of between one and two million words! During one two day stretch in early February (7-8) 1973, Dr. Goodall wrote 63 letters! The flavor of the book is pretty well captured by this quote about how the book "traces a falcon's rising gyre that turns beyond innocence through experience into wisdom, on to focused dedication." The book is organized around themes, so that you can more clearly see the connections. A delightful surprise came in the beginning with a description of how Dr. Goodall and her first husband discovered Egyptian vulures using rocks to break open ostrich eggs, one of the few examples of tool-using animals ever discovered. Dr. Goodall is also known for having uncovered the chimpanzee use of tools, as well. There is a nice photograph to show this in process. You will enjoy the many family photographs in the book, as well.During this period of time, Dr. Goodall becomes a mother and raises her son, informally known as Grub for his eating habits. She also accompanies her first husband on many expeditions to the Serengeti. The book also details the evolution of Gombe into a permanent research site, including the awful setbacks when researchers died and when a major kidnapping occurred. The many research findings of those years from Gombe are included including the effect of the polio epidemic, and the discovery of cannibalism and war among the chimpanzees. The book provides more glimpses of how she feel in love with and married her second husband, and her reactions to his untimely death due to cancer. Dr. Goodall has become an animal rights advocate, and the beginnings of that awareness are developed here. She saw her first bio-medical laboratory with chimpanzees in it during 1987, and was appalled by what she saw. Since then, she has worked to change the way these labs are run to honor the high intelligence and social nature of the chimpanzees. Much remains to be done.I encourage you to als