Russ Kinne. Photo Researchers 
Small ears and a pointed, foxlike 
muzzle are characteristic of 
the sifaka, one of the many 
lemurs found in Madagascar. 
with central government officials in 
the capital and has commiserated with 
beleaguered foresters in the field; she 
has talked with a king on his off-hour 
from operating the police station 
switchboard and has picked wickedly 
barbed thorns from her skin in the 
spiny, arid forests of the south. All 
of this, and much more, she reports 
in a marvelously evocative way. If you 
never visit Madagascar yourself, or 
perhaps even if you do, you are un- 
likely ever to know it better than you 
will through the pages of this book. 
For those who like their images visual, 
there are a hundred black-and-white 
photographs by Russ Kinne. They pro- 
vide an excellent complement to the 
text, but one still regrets the dearth 
of color photographs. By their isola- 
tion, the six that have found their 
way into the book simply emphasize 
the lack of others. 
But A World Like Our Own is, as 
I have suggested, much more than 
mere travelogue. It tells two parallel 
stories: that of the decimation by 
humans of the Malagasy flora and 
fauna and that of the Malagasy peas- 
ant’s struggle for survival. Both stories 
are moving, and both are movingly 
told. Jolly sees the destruction of Mad- 
agascar’s treasurehouse of plants and 
animals and is deeply concerned. But 
she also sees the plight of the peasant 
who must feed and shelter his family, 
and who cannot afford to think of 
tomorrow when today’s needs are so 
pressing. And she sees beyond both 
of these things: that while for the mo- 
ment further forest destruction will 
keep the peasant and his family alive, 
ultimately there will be no more forest 
to destroy, and the peasant will have 
to find some method other than cut- 
ting-and-burning to earn his livelihood 
or starve. But what? For with the dis- 
appearance of the forest come the dis- 
appearance of nutrients from the soil, 
the disappearance of the soil from the 
slopes, and the disappearance of the 
water from the streams. This is no 
mere doomsday extrapolation to some- 
thing that may happen if present 
trends continue unchecked— it has al- 
ready happened over much of the is- 
land. Not for nothing has Madagascar 
been described as an island the 
“shape, color and consistency of a 
brick.” I remember my own reactions 
upon flying over Madagascar for the 
first time: the landscape below looked 
brown, dead, forlorn. How, I won- 
dered, could this possibly be the home 
of the most fascinating forest fauna 
on earth? Cut, burn, plant, harvest, 
and move: this has been the human 
pattern on Madagascar for centuries. 
But in the past there was much more 
forest; in the past the island was not 
home to nine million people, half of 
them under twenty. 
All of this Alison Jolly sees, de- 
scribes, understands. But if there is 
one flaw in this charming, tolerant 
book, it is that it is too charming, 
too tolerant. Jolly’s sympathy is almost 
too complete. It is somewhat as if 
she were describing a Garden of Eden 
in which eating the apple had itself 
become a sacramental act. She was 
sent to Madagascar by the World 
Wildlife Fund, an organization pre- 
sumably devoted to saving other spe- 
cies from extinction rather than to 
preserving the life style of peasants. 
