A review by daviddiamond
Between Man and Beast: An Unlikely Explorer, the Evolution Debates, and the African Adventure That Took the Victorian World by Storm by Monte Reel

3.0

How appropriate I finished this book on Darwin Day! I thoroughly enjoyed the first half of the book and its depiction of 19th century equatorial Africa. Equally interesting was 19th century NYC and London. The hunt for the "mysterious" gorilla (at this point in history, no white man had ever seen) was thrilling, although the depiction of shooting and capturing gorillas was a bit hard to stomach. The bickering and backstabbing amongst the leading scientists of the day became a bit tedious and seemed to go on forever. Paul du Chaillu, the central figure of the story, is an interesting individual who spent much of his life defending his work while at the same time keeping his own origins a mystery.