Since March is my month to read about strong women, I decided to read the biography of a woman I deeply admire, the famous primatologist, Jane Goodall. Prior to reading Goodall's story, I only knew bits and pieces about her life from television shows and interviews I'd seen. I had a vision of her in my mind as a fearless woman scientist who fought to make it in a male-dominated field. As I made my way through her impressively complex story, I came to realize that my initial impression of her was correct, but in a completely different way than I thought. This was a very enlightening and inspiring reading experience.
Dale Peterson's comprehensive biography of Goodall is a brick, coming in at 714 pages of tiny print. He tells Jane's story from the very beginning, before she was even born, in fact, with information about the lives of her ancestors, grandparents and parents. With the help of letters, personal journal entries, and interviews, Peterson presents a very detailed account of Goodall's happy childhood, her famous work studying chimpanzees in Africa, and her later social activism. Goodall is a very impressive woman, and the story of how she rose from secretary to scientific icon is equally impressive. The biography covers a lot of ground--too much to comment on everything in this review, so I thought I would discuss the moments that stood out the most to me.
What I was the most surprised to discover while reading was how Goodall came to work in Africa. I was picturing a fresh-faced college graduate pursuing a lifelong dream to observe chimps. Instead, I read about how a secretary working for the famous anthropologist Louis Leakey said yes when he asked her if she might be interested in going to Africa. Goodall had no formal education besides secretary training when she left to study at the Gombe Reserve. All she had was a quiet, intelligent nature, a strong work ethic, and a love for animals. He asked, and she jumped on the opportunity. Thus began the career of one of the most famous scientists of our time.
Goodall earned her Ph.D. after studying chimps for years in Africa, and even then, it was only a formality so that she would be taken more seriously at conferences. She was already one of the world's foremost experts in chimpanzee behavior. She didn't even have to take classes to get her degree, she just needed the help of some professors to write up her observations as a scientific dissertation. This was just astounding to me and it is an important lesson in saying yes to things, even if those things seem impractical, impossible or scary. She went all in on something that sounded fun and discovered her life's work. We should all be so lucky.
Another point I loved was how Goodall was refreshingly open-minded and willing to consider chimpanzees as rational, intelligent individuals. Most people now would probably agree that chimps are highly intelligent, but this belief was new when Goodall was studying in Africa. She was one of the first people to take this point of view, and was roundly criticized for it. She knew she was right, however, and stuck to her beliefs. In doing that, she was able to reshape the way people thought about both the great apes and about what being "human" really meant.
I was also surprised to learn that in the second phase of her career, Goodall became quite the social activist. She still visits her chimps in Africa, of course, but her primary work now is to work to promote a better standard of care for captive chimpanzees, establish wildlife reserves, assist native Africans with establishing sustainable farming practices and promote peace and tolerance through her work with children. As Peterson notes, she travels about 300 days out of each year giving lectures, interviews, fundraising and working with world leaders. Just reading about the work she does is exhausting. I can't imagine the energy she must have to actually do it.
Overall, I really enjoyed reading about Goodall's life and career. This biography, while very lengthy, is readable--once you get used to the slow pace. I admit that it took me a while to get into the story. I don't know if all the information about Goodall as a child was particularly necessary, and it made the beginning of the book difficult to get through. Peterson also spends a lot of time giving the background stories of many of the figures in Goodall's life, which felt a little unnecessary as well. I would have rather had more information about the observations Goodall made about the chimps. There was surprisingly little of that in comparison to everything else. To be fair, however, Goodall's famous "In the Shadow of Man" is what I should read if I want to learn more about her work.
In the end, Dale Peterson's Jane Goodall was an excellent and thorough account of the life of an extraordinary woman. I still have the utmost respect for Goodall as a groundbreaking female scientist, but my admiration has shifted from a vague respect for her academic accomplishments to a concrete respect for her bravery, patience, ethics, and hard work. This biography was a fantastic read, and one that I would definitely recommend to those who admire Goodall and have excellent reading stamina.
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