Featured Book
An Inordinate Fondness for Beetles
While Alfred Russel Wallace is recognized as co-discoverer of the theory of natural selection (and was perhaps deliberately sidelined by Darwin) he was also an edgy social commentator and a voracious collector of “natural productions” – while in Asia he caught, skinned, and pickled 125,660 specimens including 212 new species of birds, 200 new species of ants, and 900 new species of beetles.
In the book Sochaczewski, who has lived and worked in Southeast Asia for more than 40 years, follows Wallace’s eight years of exploration in Southeast Asia, based on Wallace’s classic book The Malay Archipelago.
In An Inordinate Fondness for Beetles Sochaczewski has created an innovative form of storytelling, combining incisive biography and personal travelogue.
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Featured Articles
US VS THEM: Why tribal people and nature get screwed by Asian governments and business leaders
This short article is inspired by EarthLove. The book is fiction, the issues are real. US vs THEM Why tribal people and nature get screwed by Asian governments and business leaders In Borneo, paternalistic governments and avaricious businesspeople devalue rural folks and the environments on which they rely. Such arrogance often leads to environmental destruction, […]
News & Events
10 November — Opening of COP 30 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
Ah, yet another international gathering to discuss progress in addressing the problem of climate change. This year it will be held in Belém, Brazil, and the participants will also focus on nature conservation in the country, including the vast Amazon region. I’ve been following Victorian naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace for some 50 years, including a […]
Intro to a speculative biography of Ali
My speculative biography of Ali, Alfred Russel Wallace’s assistant, was honored as the Best Historical Book of 2024 by the United States Peace Corps Writers. Here’s an excerpt from the book’s introduction. Look Here, Sir, What a Curious Bird Intro to a speculative biography of Ali, Alfred Russel Wallace’s assistant in the Malay Archipelago […]
Alfred Russel Wallace and Things That Go Bump in the Night
Alfred Russel Wallace is best known for his scientific achievements — collecting and documenting hundreds of new species of “natural productions,” major insights into biogeography, island endemism, and cultural anthropology, and notably, his development of a theory of evolution by natural selection independently of and prior to that of Charles Darwin. But Wallace was also […]