In the tradition of Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey Robert Sapolsky a foremost science writer and recipient of a MacArthur Genius Grant tells the mesmerizing story of his twenty-one years in remote Kenya with a troop of savanna baboons. I had never planned to become a savanna baboon when I grew up; instead I had always assumed I would become a mountain gorilla writes Robert Sapolsky in this witty and riveting chronicle of a scientist s coming-of-age in Africa. An exhilarating account of Sapolsky s twenty-one-year study of a troop of rambunctious baboons in Kenya A Primate s Memoir interweaves serious scientific observations with wry commentary about the challenges and pleasures of living in the wilds of the Serengeti--for man and beast alike. Over two decades Sapolsky survives culinary atrocities gunpoint encounters and a surreal kidnapping while witnessing the encroachment of the tourist mentality on Africa. As he conducts unprecedented physiological research on wild primates he becomes enamored of his subjects--unique and compelling characters in their own right--and he returns to them summer after summer until tragedy finally prevents him. By turns hilarious and poignant A Primate s Memoir is a magnum opus from one of our foremost science writers.