Camping With the Prince and Other Tales of Science in Africa - Hardcover

Thomas Bass has an A.B.(Honors) from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in the History of Consciousness from the University of California at Santa Cruz. He has taught literature and history at Hamilton College and the University of California. Professor of English at the University at Albany, Mr. Bass lives in New York with his wife and three children.

In a camp of nomads on the Kenya-Uganda border, a British economist designs a famine early-warning system; in Nigeria, a scientist searches for new viruses in a disturbed environment; at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (Nigeria), soil experts are developing various crop cycles to keep the land productive. For two years, Bass ( The Eudaemonic Pie ) traveled through Africa, attaching himself to scientific expeditions. He went diving in Lake Malawi on the border of Tanzania to observe Cichlid fish mating, visited an ecological project in Mali and a pest-control center in Kenya. He offers a gripping account of health and environmental issues that are unique to Africa; there is a sardonic piece on official visitors and what they are shown. Bass gives full marks to persevering scientists who overcome the collision between their Western training and African culture.
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