Robert M. Sapolsky is a biologist who manages to artfully and wittily narrate the story of his two decades spent working with a troop of baboons in a national park located in East Africa. A Primates Memoir: A Neuroscientist's Unconventional Life Among the Baboons is not just a scientific work based on Sapolsky's study of the effect of stress levels on baboons. Sapolsky also uses his own experiences to give us a clearer understanding of the devastating effects that colonialism has had on Africa in the past, and he makes his account interesting for the typical reader by paralleling the cultural facts with touching and amusing stories of his baboon troop (along with recounts of his own experiences). For example, one can not help but draw parallels between the tendencies of his baboon troop and that of the local tribes.
Sapolsky finds that life in the African bush land is anything but quiet and peaceful. This is in part due to the predatory nature of his warlike neighbors, the Masai, and also in part because of the attitude that natives have towards tourists. When Sapolsky first arrives in Africa he realizes that even with all his book learned knowledge he is still naïve. He falls for numerous scams, is kidnapped, misunderstands the local culture, and even allows his own idealistic allusions of Africa to get in the way of his own success. Sapolsky eventually learns from his mistakes, and throughout his two decades spent on and off studying in Africa he grows into a distinguished biologist. He experiences and witnesses tragedy that is the result of a corrupt government, and expresses his frustration throughout the book. In the end, Sapolsky writes, “I have gained, as they say, some perspective with the years. I no longer rage at night with the memories of that period…I do not write these words with the hope that they will collapse the Kenyan economy or destroy tourism there” (302). Sapolsky writes his memoir with the hopes that it will reach enough people to make a change for the better, and draw attention to both cultural and scientific issues that have been swept under the mat for too long.
