An Inordinate Fondness for Beetles follows the Victorian-era explorations of Alfred Russel Wallace through Indonesia, Singapore and
Malaysia. While Wallace is recognized as co-discoverer of the theory of natural selection (and was perhaps deliberately sidelined by Darwin) he was also an edgy social commentator and a
voracious collector of ��atural productions". Sochaczewski, author of Sultan and the Mermaid Queen and co-author of
Soul of the Tiger, has created an innovative form of storytelling - combining incisive biography and personal travelogue. He examines themes
about which Wallace cared deeply -- women�� power, why boys leave home, the need to collect, our relationship with other species, humanity�� need to control nature and how this leads to
nature destruction, arrogance, the role of ego and greed, white-brown and brown-brown colonialism, serendipity, passion, mysticism -- and interprets them through his own filter with
layers of humor, history, social commentary and sometimes-outrageous personal tales.
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