The Animal World of Albert Schweitzer

by Albert Schweitzer, Richard Bartlett (Illustrator), Charles Rhind Joy (Translator)

s/t: Jungle Insights into Reverence for Life

Genres: Animals

209 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1950

About the author

Albert Schweitzer, M.D., OM, was an Alsatian theologian, musician, philosopher, and physician. He was born in Kaisersberg in Alsace-Lorraine, a Germanophone region which the German Empire returned to France after World War I. Schweitzer challenged both the secular view of historical Jesus current at his time and the traditional Christian view, depicting a Jesus who expected the imminent end of the world. He received the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize in 1953 for his philosophy of "reverence for life", expressed in many ways, but most famously in founding and sustaining the Lambaréné Hospital in Gabon, west central Africa.

Reviews

[Foxglow]

Although I'd heard of Albert Schweitzer, I hadn't read any of his writings before. He was so far a head of his time; on race relations, cruelty to animals and much more. Wow.

[Frank]

The overly long introduction should have warned me. It turns out that this book was assembled from snippets culled from other published works. Yes they all concern the topic of animals. But the form is a hodge podge, a mish mash, and although the chapters are faithful to their topics this book does not flow.

It is easy to find passages which contradict the basic theme of 'reverence for life'; the retelling of hunting tales for example, and the stories of killing snakes. If AS had written this book as a piece, he would certainly have addressed these contradictions. But they be completely ignored in this poor excuse for a volume.

[Herb]

Every anecdote were like stars and the entire book an elegant constellation. The part about ethics of various origins felt esoteric and broad, but the words that sewed them together were lovely and read like poetry.

[Avary Doubleday]

Dr Schweitzer made some unusual observations of animals to be such an educated man. I found the format difficu: particularly that there were no dates attached to the comments. Disjointed.