An Inordinate Fondness for Beetles follows the Victorian-era 
explorations of Alfred Russel Wallace through Indonesia, Singapore and 
Malaysia. While Wallace is recognized as co-discoverer of the theory of 
natural selection (and was perhaps deliberately sidelined by Darwin) he 
was also an edgy social commentator and a voracious collector of 
"natural productions". Sochaczewski, author of Sultan and the Mermaid 
Queen and co-author of Soul of the Tiger, has created an innovative form
 of storytelling - combining incisive biography and personal travelogue.
 He examines themes about which Wallace cared deeply -- women's power, 
why boys leave home, the need to collect, our relationship with other 
species, humanity's need to control nature and how this leads to nature 
destruction, arrogance, the role of ego and greed, white-brown and 
brown-brown colonialism, serendipity, passion, mysticism -- and 
interprets them through his own filter with layers of humor, history, 
social commentary and sometimes-outrageous personal tales.  

An Inordinate Fondness for Beetles: Campfire Conversations with Alfred Russell Wallace PDF

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