Reflections of Eden: My Years with the Orangutans of Borneo

An anthropologist chronicles more than two decades of fieldwork in the endangered rainforest habitats of the orangutans, presenting strong arguments for conservationism and noting the striking similarities between animal and human social behavior.

From the first, it was an adventure. In 1971, at age twenty-five, Galdikas left the placid world of American academia for the remote jungles of Indonesian Borneo. Living with her husband in a primitive camp, she became surrogate mother to a "famil...