The Buffalo Book rounds up all the contemporary buffalo. Dary has located just about every single buffalo alive today in the United States. He has visited or corresponded with everyone who raises a private or government herd, small or large.
He maps their location, size, purpose, future. There are even some instructions about how to raise buffalo if one is so inclined. Both a captivating narrative and a book of environmental and historical significance, American Buffalo tells us as much about ourselves as Americans as it does about the creature who perhaps best of all embodies the American ethos.
In just over a century, widespread slaughter reduced the population to a few hundred head, and the American West lay beneath a till of bleached bones.
The country is too big, the herd too small. Rinella if anything soft-sells his own extreme skill, inviting you in to his world and letting you piggyback on what were actually years of unacknowledged practice. And yet the frame story, that of Rinella's hunt for a bison, truly takes a back seat to what I viewed as the most interesting part of the novel: the history of Man's entry into North America as best we understand it now.
We take things that "Science" says for granted these days, but there is no true consensus about how men and women entered North America. To Rinella's credit, he took the time to actually examine the on-the-ground evidence. His efforts to contextualize what we do know--from Clovis points to the biology of Bison bison--are top notch, and the best in this field. An excellent read, one of my favorite ever, and a great insight into the world of an elite big game hunter at the top of his game. View 1 comment.
Jan 01, Sweetwilliam rated it really liked it. What a great idea for a book. The author wins a lottery to go on a buffalo hunt in Alaska and takes the reader along for the ride. Along the way, he recounts the story of the buffalo from prehistoric times through the glory of the old west to present. It made a very good audiobook that kept me thoroughly entertained from start to finish. It even made me laugh a few times. The buffalo is an American icon and played a significant role in our history and their demise inspired the original conservat What a great idea for a book.
The buffalo is an American icon and played a significant role in our history and their demise inspired the original conservation movement. Years after the buffalo were annihilated, the buffalo hunters surmised that the great heard would come down from the north or appear out of nowhere. They killed the goose that laid the golden egg. The buffalo should roam. Mar 24, Kirsten rated it it was ok.
I heard an interview with the author on NPR and bought this book for my father. I have to say, he sounded a lot more articulate and focused in the interview than he does in the book. This book rambles a lot about buffalo and their place in the American psyche and little trivia bits, but it also goes on at great length about a buffalo hunt the author drew a buffalo tag in an Alaskan hunting lottery , and that part was frankly boring to me.
He also tended to insert a lot of himself into those sec I heard an interview with the author on NPR and bought this book for my father. He also tended to insert a lot of himself into those sections, and I found myself getting pretty irritated by him. The trivia and history stuff was better, though he has a tendency to wildly speculate, which got old. I wanted to like this book a lot more than I did.
Who knew that there were bison in Alaska? I've visited Wrangell National Park and even rafted a river ten miles from the one that is featured in the book. I for one never knew there were bison in Alaska. This is one of those books that is a worthwhile read because the author's take is refreshingly unconventional and there is a lot of history about bison that spice up the book. I did not love the author's personal bison hunting narrative that was threaded within the larger story.
I think a long in Who knew that there were bison in Alaska? I think a long introduction containing the hunting narrative would have worked better for me. Solid 4 stars.
Maybe even 5 stars for someone who is not averse to hunting and truly enjoys books on conservationism or environmentalism. Oct 08, Joe rated it it was amazing. Listened to it on audible, fully enjoyed it. A well informed author gives a great personal story about Buffalo along with an in depth history of the impact Buffalo have had on a perhaps global scale.
This book really hooked me at the beginning. I found the author's experiences really interesting and, having recently been to Alaska and having started reading this book on a trip to the Theodore Roosevelt National Park in ND, I was tickled to see references to so many places that we had visited. It really was fun to see those connections and get a sense of the larger context of the "American Buffalo. This book is full of information about these animals. The author weaves together his personal experiences a good chunk of the book was about his hunting trip in Alaska with lots of interesting history about the buffalo and the way it has been used both physically and in cultural references through the centuries.
Some of my favorite tidbits: 1. The anatomy of a buffalo that lets it run up to 40 mph and outrun a horse in endurance. The buffalo is "a symbol of the tenacity of wilderness and the destruction of wilderness; it's a symbol of Native American culture and the death of Native American culture; it's a symbol of the strength and vitality of American and the pettiness and greed of America; it represents a frontier both forgotten and remembered; it stands for freedom and captivity, extinction and salvation.
He discusses many theories and the overall effect on me was that they really have no idea about the true origins of the animal. At one point he says that it's an "Old Testament barrier" that caused the history of the buffalo to be unclear. He writes, "Until that month [July, ], archaeology had been compromised by the Bible, much the way evolutionary biology is plagued by that same text today.
Throughout the book he picks and chooses from any number of religious traditions and ultimately comes off as kind of flaky. At one point he writes, "Watching the weasel, you get the sense that a complete lack of morality is the only path to moral clarity. The chapters about where the buffalo comes from and the odd, nonsensical, quasi-spiritual sentiments sprinkled throughout almost killed the book for me, but, thankfully, he comes out of the few chapters about origins and dedicates the rest of the book to his hunt which was pretty entertaining.
Overall, I really liked the beginning and the end of this book, which a few chapters in the middle being quite a slog for me. I learned a lot about buffalos and it heightened my interest in them.
The adventure aspect of the author's personal experience was also pretty fun to read. I'd recommend this book with the caveat that where he gets into origin theory and religion he really is out of his depth seeming to include any theory he comes across even when he admits that its credibility has been questioned extensively and, I hate to say it, but those sections were just downright boring.
Jun 12, Madeline rated it liked it. This book is kindof like meeting a cute guy at a party and wondering why nobody else is talking to him.
Finally you manage to get that bathroom break, but then you realize he might be a dia This book is kindof like meeting a cute guy at a party and wondering why nobody else is talking to him.
Finally you manage to get that bathroom break, but then you realize he might be a diamond in the rough and maybe he is interesting after-all, an he kindof is. Jan 06, Tripp rated it it was amazing. American Buffalo is such a great read that I am surprised I haven't heard of it sooner presumptuous of me, I know. The book is part memoir, part meditation on the American relationship with nature, part social commentary and part outdoor adventure tale.
It takes quite a writer to weave that many strands together in a short book without derailing the narrative, but Steven Rinella makes it look easy. Rinella's tone is that of a self deprecating conversationalist. He hops from topic to topic with American Buffalo is such a great read that I am surprised I haven't heard of it sooner presumptuous of me, I know. He hops from topic to topic with ease, which lets him bring in a number of interesting asides about the buffalo.
When it really won't quite fit, he isn't afraid to break out a half page footnote which you should read, as they are uniformly excellent. Many writers of adventure books puff up the exploits of the author. Rinella's excursions into wildest Alaska are amazing and would probably kill me, but rather than brag, he talks about the difficulty and the mental challenge of it. This also helps bring the reader deeper into the story. Rinella's encounter with the buffalo began when he found a buffalo skull in Montana.
His research into the animals leads him to a lab in Oxford, museums in the United States and eventually to a park in Alaska where he hunts buffalo. Boulder: University Press of Colorado, He has written articles for Reiger, John F. American Sportsmen and the Origins of Conservation. Winchester, Ont. Rinella, Steven. American Buffalo. In Search of a Lost Icon. Roe, Frank Gilbert. This book explores the deep past and examines the latest knowledge on bison anatomy and physiology, how bison responded to climate change especially drought , and early bison hunters and pre-contact trade.
It also focuses on the era of European contact, in particular the arrival of the horse, and some of the first known instances of over-hunting. The book concludes with a Lakota perspective featuring new ethnohistorical research.
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