Orangutans - Robert Cribb's Wild Man from Borneo Launch by Leif Cocks
Thursday, Jun 05, 2014
Leif Cocks founder of The Orangutan Project
launches Robert Cribb's latest book
Wild Man from Borneo
Join us! Thursday June 5 at 6pm
"The orangutan population is plummeting with the destruction of their habitat for unsustainable land uses that is only benefiting a greedy few. To save them the more we can tell people about how important the orangutan and their forest habitat is, including telling their cultural history, the more chance we will have of saving the orangutan." Leif Cocks
Leif Cocks has 25 years of hands-on involvement with orangutans on the ground in Borneo and Indonesia and is the perfect person to launch Wild Man from Borneo by Professor Robert Cribb.
About the Book:
Wild Man from Borneo offers the first comprehensive history of the human-orangutan encounter. Arguably the most humanlike of all the great apes, particularly in intelligence and behavior, the orangutan has been cherished, used, and abused ever since it was first brought to the attention of Europeans in the seventeenth century. The red ape has engaged the interest of scientists, philosophers, artists, and the public at large in a bewildering array of guises that have by no means been exclusively zoological or ecological. One reason for such a long-term engagement with a being found only on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra is that, like its fellow great apes, the orangutan stands on that most uncomfortable dividing line between human and animal, existing, for us, on what has been called “the dangerous edge of the garden of nature.”
Beginning with the scientific discovery of the red ape more than three hundred years ago, this work goes on to examine the ways in which its human attributes have been both recognized and denied in science, philosophy, travel literature, popular science, literature, theatre, museums, and film. The authors offer a provocative analysis of the origin of the name “orangutan,” trace how the ape has been recruited to arguments on topics as diverse as slavery and rape, and outline the history of attempts to save the animal from extinction. Today, while human populations increase exponentially, that of the orangutan is in dangerous decline. The remaining “wild men of Borneo” are under increasing threat from mining interests, logging, human population expansion, and the widespread destruction of forests. The authors hope that this history will, by adding to our knowledge of this fascinating being, assist in some small way in their preservation.
About the Authors:
Robert Cribb is professor of Asian History at the Australian National University. He writes widely on Indonesian history. His books include Gangsters and revolutionaries, Modern Indonesia, The Indonesian Killings of 1965-1966 and the Historical Atlas of Indonesia. His co-authors for Wild Man from Borneo were Helen Gilbert, Professor of Drama and Theatre at Royal Holloway College in London, and Helen Tiffin, now retired from the University of Queensland, a major scholar on post-colonial literature.
When: 6pm Thursday June 5th, 2014
Where: Asia Bookroom, Unit 2, 1 - 3 Lawry Place, Macquarie. ACT
RSVP: By the 4th of June, either by phoning 6251 5191 or Email Us
Admission by gold coin donation to the Orangutan Project
This is a really important and interesting event. If you can't join us on the 5th of June and would like to buy a signed copy, let us know as it can easily be arranged.