Of Tigers and Men: Entering the Age of Extinction

by Richard Ives

A naturalist describes his journey through the shrinking wild areas of India, Nepal, and Southeast Asia in search of the tiger, profiling the conservators who have been fighting a losing battle to save the animal

Genres: Nonfiction, Nature, Animals, Natural History

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

Reviews

[Irene Roge]

Got to search for wild tigers without having to make the journey

[Lily Kopp]

First nature/travel book I’ve read. It is great to read knowing now that tigers are making a comeback, gives us a little hope

[Tracie Scherzer]

I’ll admit, I didn’t make it through. It was just words strung together. I was gaining no enjoyment, insight, ideas, information, or anything. So I gave up. Just a waste of time. I don’t often give up on books but this one was lacking so much. Very hazy descriptions, few details, not much substance about anyone, anything, or anywhere. This could have been a great and informative read. Instead, just time.

[Amy]

Having read about the tiger population of India doubling in the last ten years, it's nice to see the hopelessness in this book proven premature. It's a 20+ year old book, but still interesting and complicated.

[Jeffrey Hart]

I purchased and read this book after I was contacted by the author about a problem he had in tracing the whereabouts of a long lost relative. Ives was a tour guide for people who wanted to visit the Himalayan regions and India before he began his quest for information about tigers. The main question he asks is whether they can survive in the face of the growing populations of humans in Asia and the inability of the governments of the region to protect them from various threats to their survival as a species. More importantly, though, he reports on his own personal quest for an encounter with a tiger in the wild, which seems to be part of a larger effort to understand himself and the people he meets along the way who also are obsessed with tigers. While the book can be read as a passionate argument for greater effort to protect tigers and their habitats from further human encroachment, in my view it gets its emotional punch from the personal story telling that accompanies the depressing accounts of a waning (but beautiful and deadly) species. 25 years ago it might have been a harder sell to defend a large feline predator, so the author was probably wise to add these personal stories to his ardent harangue. Even though today it is a much easier argument to make and audiences are more receptive to the message, this is still a fine book. It entertains and teaches in about equal measure.

[Tony Taylor]

The author was a naturalist and tour guide in Asia, especially conducting tours in Nepal, in the late 1980s. During the later part of the '80s until the early '90s he had an interest in researching the demise of tigers in the wild with the intent in writing a book on the subject. Although the book was probably not what he may have envisioned in the beginning, he intertwines his research on tigers with those people he meets along the way, primarily those in India who for one reason or not had a close understanding of tigers in the wild and were able to open opportunities to the author for conducting research firsthand. The book is written almost like a journal and reflects his personal accounts as well as sharing his self-doubts about himself and many of those people he meets along the way.

[Carl]

A strange book. The author writes about his quest to walk up to a wild tiger in the jungle. The book is partly a book about tigers, partly a travelogue, describing the places in the world that he visits, and partly character sketches of the interesting and erudite people he meets along the way, some of whom tell him he’s crazy suicidal. Most of the people that appear in the book love tigers, and hate to see them wiped out in the wild. They grudgingly realize that in areas where tigers and humans coexist, the tigers kill a non-trivial number of people, but they are heartbroken about humans erasing the menace.

The author writes well.

[Ryan]

Doom and gloom predictions of the wild tiger's demise by this time made a decade ago did not come true (thankfully!), although the situation continues to deteriorate. The depressing forecast aside, this book is compact yet packed with concise info on human cultural history with the Tiger, while giving an interesting account of the author's personal relationship with the beast and nature in Asia. Less of a meandering prose than Ruth Patel's more recent work.

[Thomas Schulte]

This book has a depressing conclusion that the age of wild tigers is in its final years ... irrevocably. That is not why I am rating this book so low. Along the voyage of uncovering this animal's plight from central India to southeast Asia, he finds many words to complain and delineate what aggravates him in travelling and seems to entirely miss what must have been stunning, impressive, and meaningful. Also, not a single picture to help us realize these exotic locales.

[Susan]

This book is reminiscent of Ruth Padel's Tigers in Red Weather or even Peter Matthiessen's Tigers in the Snow. If you are looking for a book that gives you good information on tigers while telling you a story of the author's travels, then look no further. This book chronicles a four-year period in the author's life and is a fascinating account of the plight of the wild tiger in India.

[Judith]

I was alternately discouraged and encouraged by this beautifully written book. It makes me sad to think that the reality of man and beast being able to coexist peacefully on this earth is about as likely and man coexisting peacefully on this earth. I highly recommend this book if you have any fascination with the animals of the wild and what they can teach us about ourselves as humans.

[Teresa]

Beautiful read. An autobiography of Richard Ives. The realization of the eventual extinction of one of the tigers of the world.

[Cat]

Fantastic!!! A must for anyone who cares about the tiger population and their conservation. For a factual account it is so well written and flows really well. Excellent!!!

[Meli]

This is a great book. I would definitely recommend it. Although its about tigers it's really a metaphor for so many species on our planet so near the brink of no return.