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High Jungles and Low
"Illuminated by the same joyful curiosity and erudition, lyric writing, and plain love of life that made a classic of Archie Carr’s The Windward Road ."--Peter Matthiessen
"Archie Carr shows that he can write about people and forests engagingly and accurately without recourse to fake adventures or gringo condescension."-- New York Times
Archie Carr’s story is his love for the rural high tropics of Central America, revealed with grace and humor in the personal account of the years (1945-49) that he spent in Honduras with his family as a teacher at the Agricultural School run by the United Fruit Company.
High Jungles and Low has four parts, each written in a distinctive style. "The Land" is descriptive and includes a candid chapter on Yankee relations with Latin America. "People in the Land" is anecdotal, with sketches of the hill people of Honduras. "The Sweet Sea," a short history of Nicaragua, reveals the biological drama of four centuries of turmoil in that country. "Hall of the Mountain Cow" is Carr’s one-month diary of a 100-mile walk along the Mosquito Shore, the rain forest of the Caribbean coast.
"Archie Carr shows that he can write about people and forests engagingly and accurately without recourse to fake adventures or gringo condescension."-- New York Times
Archie Carr’s story is his love for the rural high tropics of Central America, revealed with grace and humor in the personal account of the years (1945-49) that he spent in Honduras with his family as a teacher at the Agricultural School run by the United Fruit Company.
High Jungles and Low has four parts, each written in a distinctive style. "The Land" is descriptive and includes a candid chapter on Yankee relations with Latin America. "People in the Land" is anecdotal, with sketches of the hill people of Honduras. "The Sweet Sea," a short history of Nicaragua, reveals the biological drama of four centuries of turmoil in that country. "Hall of the Mountain Cow" is Carr’s one-month diary of a 100-mile walk along the Mosquito Shore, the rain forest of the Caribbean coast.
272 pages, Paperback
First published July 28, 1992
About the author
Archie Carr
24 books10 followersArchie Carr was a University of Florida Graduate Research Professor of Zoology and was associated with the University for more than fifty years. His entire career was spent at the University of Florida, first as a student, B.A. (1932), M.S. (1934), and as the University’s first Ph.D. (1937) in zoology.
His ability to translate science into literature brought the first international attention to the plight of sea turtles. He wrote 11 books and over 120 scientific articles about sea turtles and their habitats before his death in 1987. His work and writings ranged throughout Florida, the Caribbean, and Africa. After his death, he was honored with the creation of the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge in Florida and the Dr. Archie Carr Wildlife Refuge in Costa Rica.
Archie Carr published his first paper on sea turtles in 1942, but it was not until he wrote his classic Handbook of Turtles (1952) that he began to focus his research on sea turtles. He described his early discoveries about the plight of sea turtles in his book The Windward Road particularly in his chapter The Passing of the Fleet, which was a call to arms and resulted in global efforts to conserve sea turtles from extinction.
Archie Carr was one of those rare individuals who could inspire both scientific and general public audiences with his writings. His genius and creativity were allowed full scope because the University of Florida awarded him a graduate research professorship in 1959, essentially freeing him of all responsibilities so that he could pursue his research and writing. He repaid that investment many-fold.
In 1987 he was awarded the Eminent Ecologist Award by the Ecological Society of America. He made extraordinary contribution to sea turtle conservation by way of bringing attention to the world's declining turtle populations due to over-exploitation and loss of safe habitat.
Source: University of Florida; http://accstr.ufl.edu/accstr-overview...
His ability to translate science into literature brought the first international attention to the plight of sea turtles. He wrote 11 books and over 120 scientific articles about sea turtles and their habitats before his death in 1987. His work and writings ranged throughout Florida, the Caribbean, and Africa. After his death, he was honored with the creation of the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge in Florida and the Dr. Archie Carr Wildlife Refuge in Costa Rica.
Archie Carr published his first paper on sea turtles in 1942, but it was not until he wrote his classic Handbook of Turtles (1952) that he began to focus his research on sea turtles. He described his early discoveries about the plight of sea turtles in his book The Windward Road particularly in his chapter The Passing of the Fleet, which was a call to arms and resulted in global efforts to conserve sea turtles from extinction.
Archie Carr was one of those rare individuals who could inspire both scientific and general public audiences with his writings. His genius and creativity were allowed full scope because the University of Florida awarded him a graduate research professorship in 1959, essentially freeing him of all responsibilities so that he could pursue his research and writing. He repaid that investment many-fold.
In 1987 he was awarded the Eminent Ecologist Award by the Ecological Society of America. He made extraordinary contribution to sea turtle conservation by way of bringing attention to the world's declining turtle populations due to over-exploitation and loss of safe habitat.
Source: University of Florida; http://accstr.ufl.edu/accstr-overview...
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January 29, 2022
As someone who is a huge Archie Carr fan I have to say this is by far my least favorite AFC book. The taxonomy is really messed up. There are gross errors when it comes to snake classification (i.e. Archie somehow gets confused and shuttles the Bushmaster, genus Lachesis, in the genus Bothrops? What? Come on Archie) in both the technical and folk sense. At one point he mentions Ivory-billed woodpeckers in Honduras. They never extended south of Cuba and this might be forgivable, in that he was confusing an Ivory-billed woodpecker with an Imperial woodpecker but that really doesn't work either because Imperials were only ever found within 7 states in the central sierras of Mexico. He makes some reference to Jacanas having a "poisonous spine" - they absolutely do not possess any such thing. Loved "The Windward Road" - Did not like "High Jungles and Low."
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