The Last Giants: The Rise and Fall of the African Elephant

Elephants are fascinating and Ive read many books about them, including two mentioned here. Levison Wood is not a Biologist or an Ethologist, but hes a good old-fashioned British explorer. He is knowledgable but not an expert, so his account is clear and easy for regular people to understand. He does a good job of summarizing different facts about the African elephants, from their origins, history, biology and behavior. These parts I enjoyed enormously. The chapters devoted to the financial aspect of animal conservation and the monetary value of elephants lives was not really my cup of tea, but was still eye-opening. The last part is more political, so the whole volume addresses everything you need to know about these gorgeous pachyderms. The audiobook is narrated by the author so its like hes telling you all these wonderful stories around the fire in the African savannah.
I chose to listen to this audiobook and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, NetGalley/Tantor Audio!

I have read quite a few of this Authors books, and I love his journeys in different countries.
This one is different as it is an informational book on Elephants, in which he also gives us some of his personal encounters with these animals.
Very well researched and written, this book will give you information on just about any aspect of the elephants life. Here he talks mainly of the African elephant, but he does bring into play the Asian Elephant.
It is a book a bit hard to review as it is about so many different things. If you love elephants, or are worried about their future, this is a book for you. It reads very smoothly as he has added a lot of personal stories to the facts.
I thoroughly enjoyed the information given, which is eye opening in parts, but also just pure enjoyment seeing how these beautiful animals relate to one another and survive the ever growing way civilization is overtaking their needed land.

I received this book thanks to the publisher through NetGalley. I am sorry it took me so long to finish it. It wasn’t so difficult because I didn’t like it, quite on contrary, but because it caused me such a pain to read it. Each chapter was a woeful reminder of what a beautiful world we are losing each day with our encroachment, cruelty and intolerance toward the wildlife and nature around us. European wildlife, I suspect, has already lost that battle long time ago.

Levison Wood did a stunning amount of research about elephants, their history and their issues all over African continent. However, the book is not only about animals per se, but about environmental and social crisis tightly connected with the wildlife conservation issues in Africa. Wood doesn’t allow sentimentality and bias toward nature conservation to cloud his judgment.

Wood rightly summarizes Africa is not just about animals, it is about people striving together with the animals sharing the same habitats. Without prosperity for humans there is little or none chance for animals to prosper too. They are all doomed in that vicious circle of poverty that is exploited by powers to be usually living elsewhere in their penthouses. Thankfully, Wood provides us eventually a chapter with a glimmer of hope in that aspect. Ideas provided by local people with meager resources that solved some issues they had with elephants are so genuinely brilliant.

I wish so much that not only common people read this book but also people in power to do so much more than we can. People just have to realize the nature is not their enemy nor a perishable mantelpiece commodity to use but an ally and a valuable living resource to their prosperity and development. Of course, it is not just a fight for a better Africa, but for a better world, so we all must work together to stop this extinction of our planet.

An all too sorry tale expertly narrated of the negative impact humans have had on these majestic beasts, taking us through our impact on their society and then reversing the perspective.

A well researched and, as always, a highly readable tome from Mr Wood, but with more passion than some of his works, as he outlines his call for help if we are, collectively, to enable the next generation’s children to see and enjoy such wildlife (in its natural habitat) in future years.

An emotional cry from the heart well told.

A wonderfully written overview of the plight of Elephants. Plenty of fascinating insights into the mind of these amazing animals and lots of great history. I feel like I will win every pub quiz going forward. Nice to learn more about the efforts of conservation by charities too.

Galaxyaudiobook Member Benefit

- Able to comment

- List watched audiobooks

- List favorite audiobooks

- Bookmark will only available for Galaxyaudiobook member