Mean and Lowly Things: Snakes, Science, and Survival in the Congo | 
 enlarge | Author: Kate Jackson
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 17702
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.8 x 1.2
ISBN: 0674029747
Dewey Decimal Number: 597.96096724
EAN: 9780674029743
ASIN: 0674029747
Publication Date: April 30, 2008
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Product Description
In 2005 Kate Jackson ventured into the remote swamp forests of the northern Congo to collect reptiles and amphibians. Her camping equipment was rudimentary, her knowledge of Congolese customs even more so. She knew how to string a net and set a pitfall trap, but she never imagined the physical and cultural difficulties that awaited her. Culled from the mud-spattered pages of her journals, Mean and Lowly Things reads like a fast-paced adventure story. It is Jackson’s unvarnished account of her research on the front lines of the global biodiversity crisis?coping with interminable delays in obtaining permits, learning to outrun advancing army ants, subsisting on a diet of Spam and manioc, and ultimately falling in love with the strangely beautiful flooded forest. The reptile fauna of the Republic of Congo was all but undescribed, and Jackson’s mission was to carry out the most basic study of the amphibians and reptiles of the swamp forest: to create a simple list of the species that exist there?a crucial first step toward efforts to protect them. When the snakes evaded her carefully set traps, Jackson enlisted people from the villages to bring her specimens. She trained her guide to tag frogs and skinks and to fix them in formalin. As her expensive camera rusted and her Western soap melted, Jackson learned what it took to swim with the snakes?and that there’s a right way and a wrong way to get a baby cobra out of a bottle. (20080415)
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Intrepid Adventure June 19, 2008
"To understand the world, we must understand mean and lowly things." - Aristotle
Kate Jackson recounts her expeditions with the flare of the best natural field scientists from Jane Goodall to Frank Buck - every bit as fascinating and courageous. Scientific exploration - hardships, danger, daring, mysteries, accomplishment, exotic cultural surprises. Including a glimpse into modern scientific camaraderie around the world and government bureaucratic malfeasance. Highly recommended glimpse of an intrepid person enjoying herself physically and intellectually.
"No person who is enthusiastic about his work has anything to fear from life." -Samuel Goldwyn
Gutsy science May 16, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Kate Jackson is a much-accomplished scientist at a releatively young age. I do happen to know Kate on a personal level...yet her blend of skills still amazes me. She is one part curiousity, two parts courage, and three parts intelligence. Her most impressive skill to me (with my more literary bent) is her sure ability at narrative---her descriptions pull you into the jungle and make you feel your rotting socks in the jungle heat. I think everyone should read Kate's book, as I am sure you have never met anyone like her either.
A new Raymond Ditmars May 4, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
The reason that scientists don't know much about the reptiles and amphibians of the Congo, we learn in Kate Jackson's gripping Mean and Lowly Things is because it's a very difficult place to live and most scientists would rather work in places less remote. As a new Ph.D., Kate Jackson doesn't have much of a choice; she can go to the Congo and find snakes on her own, or she can play second, third, or fourth fiddle to some other researcher in a place with running water. Choosing the road less traveled seems to have made all the difference because Jackson turns out to be made of exactly the mettle needed for surviving in climates of perpetual damp, heat, bureaucracy, poverty, and, oh yeah, maggots, biting ants, malaria, sleeping sickness, foot long millipedes and of, course, cobras.
Reminiscent of Raymond Ditmar's very out of print Snake Hunter's Holiday Jackson plunges into the submerged and remote forests of the Congo with a resolve and story telling ability that keep readers on the edge of their seats. Whether cheering along as she captures venomous snakes, or cringing as she describes discovering that maggots are growing under her skin, either way, it's a gripping and enjoyable book that makes you appreciate those people for who intentionally choose the difficult path, try harder when things seem hopeless, and persevere.
Fieldwork was never so compelling... April 25, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Mean and Lowly Things is a gripping firsthand account of Kate Jackson's adventures as a herpetological fieldworker in the Congo. While the book provides the reader with scientific detail it's written in a style which brings the experience of conducting field research vividly to life, and as such it mirrors the best travel literature. Keen observations of culture and life are balanced by frank description of the frustrations, fears and feelings of inadequacy which all travelers undergo when venturing to the fringes of the map.
It becomes obvious within the first few pages that Jackson passionately believes in the epigram from Aristotle that opens the book: "To understand the world, we must understand mean and lowly things." Every page of the book breathes the excitement of discovery and the wonders of the forest, and she returns again and again to the message that there is indeed great value in studying toads and snakes.
The opening chapters deal with Jackson's early years of study and work in museum collections, which provides a fascinating insight into the world of hard science with a personal angle. But we really get into the meat when she finally organizes her own expedition to a remote field camp deep in the African Congo. The skills needed on such a venture weren't taught in graduate school. They were simply things that had to be figured out for oneself through a process of trial and error. And when dealing with venomous snakes, errors can be costly. We travel with her as she learns the ropes on a trip marred by civil war, cultural barriers, and a medical evacuation due to raging infection caused by a scraped leg that came into contact with contaminated swamp water. Despite this experience, she comes away with "an altogether irrational longing to return."
Jackson goes back to the Congo for two more expeditions, which are also described in the book. Her focus is on the work and on the phenomenon that she observes, and in that sense, as well as in the way she brushes aside discomfort and understates real dangers, her writing style takes one back to the great 18th and 19th century explorers who first described Africa's mysterious interior. In camp she slept beneath a patched orange tarpaulin on a simple groundsheet, covered in a mosquito net: a situation that caused her Bantu guide to quit because the living conditions were too harsh. The inedible food prepared by her cook - bland manioc which tasted like "a cross between a chunk of wood and an overcooked potato", and soup made with smoked fish which was often half rotten and infested with maggots - caused her to lose 10 pounds in the course of 5 weeks. And then there were the seemingly insurmountable cultural barriers.
But all of that discomfort and frustration is eclipsed by the wonders of discovery and by the thrill of the chase. It's a message of life lived passionately, with purpose, and to the fullest. All of us could benefit from that.
The reality of field work April 25, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
"Mean and Lowly Things" is a phenomenal account of the trials and tribulations of herpetological field work in one of the most remote places of the world. Jackson tells her story of collecting amphibians and reptiles in the swamp forests of the Northern Congo without bias and in a way that highlights and accentuates the reasons why someone would long to camp in a secluded swamp forest to catch these creatures. "Mean and Lowly" gives down-to-Earth and easily accessible insight into the little-known area of herpetological field work. Jackson shows exactly how mundane things such as drinking water and dry clothes can be hard to come by in the field, yet how tenacity, passion and curiosity can overcome just about any seemingly insurmountable odd. From impossible government bureaucracies and maggots that grow in your skin, to traditional village customs and published scientific data, "Mean and Lowly" truly covers everything one has to deal with as a scientist in the field in an easy and enjoyable read meant for anyone. It is a wonderful and tantalizing book filled with stories that will make you want to leave for the rain forest tomorrow.
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