Mean and Lowly Things: Snakes, Science, and Survival in the Congo | 
 enlarge | Author: Kate Jackson
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
Buy New: $17.52
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Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 34031
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 336
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.8 x 1.2
ISBN: 0674029747
Dewey Decimal Number: 597.96096724
EAN: 9780674029743
ASIN: 0674029747
Publication Date: April 30, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
In 2005 Kate Jackson ventured into the remote swamp forests of the northern Congo to collect reptiles and amphibians. Her camping equipment was rudimentary, her knowledge of Congolese customs even more so. She knew how to string a net and set a pitfall trap, but she never imagined the physical and cultural difficulties that awaited her. Culled from the mud-spattered pages of her journals, Mean and Lowly Things reads like a fast-paced adventure story. It is Jackson’s unvarnished account of her research on the front lines of the global biodiversity crisis?coping with interminable delays in obtaining permits, learning to outrun advancing army ants, subsisting on a diet of Spam and manioc, and ultimately falling in love with the strangely beautiful flooded forest. The reptile fauna of the Republic of Congo was all but undescribed, and Jackson’s mission was to carry out the most basic study of the amphibians and reptiles of the swamp forest: to create a simple list of the species that exist there?a crucial first step toward efforts to protect them. When the snakes evaded her carefully set traps, Jackson enlisted people from the villages to bring her specimens. She trained her guide to tag frogs and skinks and to fix them in formalin. As her expensive camera rusted and her Western soap melted, Jackson learned what it took to swim with the snakes?and that there’s a right way and a wrong way to get a baby cobra out of a bottle. (20080415)
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| Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
 didn't do much for me November 30, 2008
N. Huston (at large)
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
i'm a herpetologist, on an amateur or, inflating my own ego a little, a semi-professional level, yet this book did little for me.
it serves as an excellent cautionary tale for grad students in any field (bioloiocal, anthropological, you name it) looking to do fieldwork: nightmare upon nightmare, bureaucratic and otherwise, compounded into a seemingly endless maze of red tape and sheer physical discomfort. THAT part, i got.
it was jackson's descriptions of herself, her colleagues and her work that didn't get me. sad to say it, as this was a book i was really looking forward to, but no one in it comes across as especially likable or memorable, including the author.
she has an unfortunate tendency to limit her narrative to a nearly pure (and somehow also cursory) retelling of her surroundings, with little to no personality behind the writing. at several points in the text (particularly one passage juxtaposing field collecting methods - always fatal for the collectee - with her childhood love of crawly things), she seems nearly on the verge of sharing some deep thought process, only to veer swiftly away and back into plodding, discursive narrative.
it wasn't a horrible read (i finished it, though tempted to give up several times); it just didn't live up to much of its potential. she gets points for being a female in a male-dominated field, for choosing a notoriously difficult part of the world in which to conduct her fieldwork, and for occasionally presenting a compelling description in her text. overall, though, i'd say the book was merely average - possibly the greatest sin of all, given what i felt it could have been.
 GREAT BOOK!!!!! November 29, 2008
A Reader (Northern CA, USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Mean and Lowly Things is about an African reptile/amphib expedition undertaken by biologist Kate Jackson. It is written in the first person by a female herper which immediately changes the tone from your standard Frank Buck style of chest-thumping bravado. Regardless, the conditions in which Ms Jackson finds herself would have sent Frank and company scrambling for more comfy surroundings. The book is a perfect blend of adventure, academia, self reflection, cultural exchange, and the sense of wonderment and excitement that surrounds any collecting trip (be it in the neighborhood wood lot or flooded forests of Africa). Any adventurer would enjoy this read, and if you are a herper of any stripe - this will be a real treat!
 Who's under the microscope? October 27, 2008
Rabid Reader (Near Niagara Falls, NY)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I actually bought this book because of the cover.
I recognized the snake on the front...and wondered who in heck would want to go picking it up!
Dr. Jackson's writing is spare, and not particularly literary. No sweeping metaphors or any hint of purple prose here. Instead, it reads exactly like a diary or a field notebook in many places, and this is both its strength and its charm.
Collecting snakes is apparently not for the faint-at-heart, which becomes immediately obvious. But Dr. Jackson also gives us a fair taste of what it means to step outside of Western society, and her observations also include almost enough wonderful and fair-handed descriptions of the people she encounters to qualify as anthro fieldwork.
You'll want to read this book if you collect feathers, bones or insects; if you are a birdwatcher; enjoy ethnographies or travel writing. (But skip it if you have a disgust of all things small and slimy.)
I have to admit, though, to a certain amount of horror in finding that an respected university (Harvard?) would send a post/grad student out into the field--into the tropics & into a country with political difficulties (putting it mildly) with inadequate funding, inadequate provisioning and perhaps inadequate oversight.
Equally horrifying--if amusing--is the picture of Dr. Jackson that she herself paints! Wonderfully obsessed with herpetology, amazingly single-minded...but so narrow in focus that she doesn't know what the clinical manifestations of a venemous bite are? Forgets tents? Forgets antihelminthics? Fails to bring emergency water purification devices?
This woman and her work are fascinating, but I'm really, really glad she's not my daughter!!!
The Real Congo September 14, 2008
David Donelson
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Creepy crawly creatures are the least of Kate Jackson's worries when she travels to the Congo to advance her study of herpetology. The singularly unresponsive African bureaucracy, utterly wilting heat and damp, and the near-impossibility of getting around in a country where paved roads are little more than a memory are every bit as threatening as the most dangerous slithering serpent. This well-told account of Jackson's travels in the Congo is a must-read for anyone who wants to know what it's really like to slog through the jungle.
Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds: A Novel of Scandal, Love and Death in the Congo
A fascinating read for anyone August 30, 2008
M. Clearfield (WA, USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I'm no herpetologist but I couldn't put this book down! The author has a real knack for weaving together the details of how to do science with the excitement of real discoveries. She brings alive the magic of science, travel, survival, interacting with other cultures, and curiosity for how the world works. A great read!
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