If you know the name of only one chimpanzee scholar, that name is Jane Goodall. But if you know half a dozen such names, you know the name Bill McGrew.
Race horse owner, Hibs fan and beer enthusiast, McGrew's life has been packed with adventure – chimpanzee research aside – and in this volume he recalls that life with great humor and gusto.
I picked up
In childhood McGrew survived a direct tornado strike, and he prospected for
fossil mammals in the Arbuckle Mountains. As a teen he provisioned iguanas
by rolling food balls into their cage, snatched glimpses of a famous
chimpanzee breeding colony and journeyed to the Bahamas as a one-man
expedition stalking the elusive curly tailed lizard. As a young man he dined
with J. R. R. Tolkien, won (as a teammate of Bill Bradley) an English national
basketball championship (earning a double Oxford Blue along the way),
guarded Pat Riley in international competition, emigrated to Scotland and
marched in the largest Vietnam war protest in Britain. In full adulthood he
captured a 5 ft
While of less interest to a layperson, McGrew's briefly reviewed
professional achievements are, to an academic, every bit as riveting as his
private life. He published his first article as a teenager: on catfish prey
if you can believe it (McGrew, 1963). If you are a primatologist, you have
never even heard of his first book:
In our personal interactions, he has astonished me now and then with his knowledge of this or that abstruse area of scholarship. No wonder; in high school he became proficient in entomology, herpetology and botany. During his undergraduate years he rubbed elbows with half a score of A-list primatologists, won a Rhodes Scholarship and then began doctoral studies with Niko Tinbergen at Oxford. He has visited 60 countries in the course of his career and engaged in chimpanzee research at nine separate chimpanzee field sites – and visited a further four. His research extends far beyond chimpanzees: he has studied 18 other species of primate. He was press-ganged into directing a captive callithrichid colony at the University of Stirling and dramatically improved their lot, guiding the colony to the highest infant survival rate in the world and coinventing an artificial gum tree along the way.
At many points in McGrew's narrative my mind turned toward career-oriented discussions I have had with my current and former students. How does one get his or her first position? How to get tenure? What does it take to rise to prominence in one's field? McGrew's career is an object lesson: take seriously advice from mentors; pounce on opportunities; accept that luck will play a part in your career; pursue a fulfilling life outside academia; remind yourself that even stars suffer disappointments; and (if you wish to attain real distinction) churn out eight noteworthy publications a year.
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