The Last Wild Men of Borneo: A True Story of Death and Treasure
By Carl Hoffman
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
A 2019 EDGAR AWARDS NOMINEE (BEST FACT CRIME) • A BANFF MOUNTAIN BOOK AWARDS FINALIST
Two modern adventurers sought a treasure possessed by the legendary “Wild Men of Borneo.” One found riches. The other vanished forever into an endless jungle. Had he shed civilization—or lost his mind? Global headlines suspected murder. Lured by these mysteries, New York Times bestselling author Carl Hoffman journeyed to find the truth, discovering that nothing is as it seems in the world’s last Eden, where the lines between sinner and saint blur into one.
In 1984, Swiss traveler Bruno Manser joined an expedition to the Mulu caves on Borneo, the planet’s third largest island. There he slipped into the forest interior to make contact with the Penan, an indigenous tribe of peace-loving nomads living among the Dayak people, the fabled “Headhunters of Borneo.” Bruno lived for years with the Penan, gaining acceptance as a member of the tribe. However, when commercial logging began devouring the Penan’s homeland, Bruno led the tribe against these outside forces, earning him status as an enemy of the state, but also worldwide fame as an environmental hero. He escaped captivity under gunfire twice, but the strain took a psychological toll. Then, in 2000, Bruno disappeared without a trace. Had he become a madman, a hermit, or a martyr?
American Michael Palmieri is, in many ways, Bruno’s opposite. Evading the Vietnam War, the Californian wandered the world, finally settling in Bali in the 1970s. From there, he staged expeditions into the Bornean jungle to acquire astonishing art and artifacts from the Dayaks. He would become one of the world’s most successful tribal-art field collectors, supplying sacred works to prestigious museums and wealthy private collectors. And yet suspicion shadowed this self-styled buccaneer who made his living extracting the treasure of the Dayak: Was he preserving or exploiting native culture?
As Carl Hoffman unravels the deepening riddle of Bruno’s disappearance and seeks answers to the questions surrounding both men, it becomes clear saint and sinner are not so easily defined and Michael and Bruno are, in a sense, two parts of one whole: each spent his life in pursuit of the sacred fire of indigenous people. The Last Wild Men of Borneo is the product of Hoffman’s extensive travels to the region, guided by Penan through jungle paths traveled by Bruno and by Palmieri himself up rivers to remote villages. Hoffman also draws on exclusive interviews with Manser’s family and colleagues, and rare access to his letters and journals. Here is a peerless adventure propelled by the entwined lives of two singular, enigmatic men whose stories reveal both the grandeur and the precarious fate of the wildest place on earth.
Carl Hoffman
Carl Hoffman is the author of the New York Times bestseller Savage Harvest, hailed as a “masterpiece” by Outside and named a New York Times editors’ choice and one of the Washington Post’s 50 notable works of nonfiction for 2014, as well as The Lunatic Express. He is a former contributing editor to National Geographic Traveler and Wired, and has traveled on assignment to eighty countries.
Read more from Carl Hoffman
The Last Wild Men of Borneo: A True Story of Death and Treasure Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLiar's Circus: A Strange and Terrifying Journey Into the Upside-Down World of Trump's MAGA Rallies Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related to The Last Wild Men of Borneo
Related ebooks
Those Were the Days: Funny, Crazy & Weird: 50 Malaysian Short Stories and Photos of the 1950s to The1970s Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRascal Rain A Year in Papua New Guinea Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Savage Harvest: A Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism, and Michael Rockefeller's Tragic Quest for Primitive Art Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mayday!: Shipwrecks, Tragedies & Tales from Long Island's Eastern Shore Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCaptive Paradise: A History of Hawaii Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Crocodile Fever: A True Story of Adventure Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRed Summer: The Danger, Madness, and Exaltation of Salmon Fishing in a Remote Alaskan Village Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Through Central Borneo; an Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters Between the Years 1913 and 1917 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCrusoe, Castaways and Shipwrecks in the Perilous Age of Sail Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Life and Death in the Andes: On the Trail of Bandits, Heroes, and Revolutionaries Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Paradise in Chains: The Bounty Mutiny and the Founding of Australia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A History of the Peak District Moors Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Peaceful People: The Penan and their Fight for the Forest Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Malay Archipelago Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Worst World Disasters of All Time Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gold!: The Story of the 1848 Gold Rush and How It Shaped a Nation Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Last of the Tribe: The Epic Quest to Save a Lone Man in the Amazon Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMerida: The Delaplaine 2020 Long Weekend Guide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Revenant: - Some Incidents in the Life of Hugh Glass, a Hunter of the Missouri River Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSuper Cheap New Zealand: The Ultimate Travel Guide for Budget Travelers, Backpackers, Campers, Students and Families Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Frozen Water Trade (Text Only) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bumbling Through Africa: An Account of the Trans-African Bumble Expedition 1960-61 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTales of Old Singapore Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Mapping the Great Game: Explorers, Spies and Maps in 19th-Century Asia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rocks, Sydney: A Self-Guided Walking Tour Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsI Was a Jap Prisoner of War On The Death Railway Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJust Like Us: A Veterinarian’s Visual Memoir of Our Vanishing Great Ape Relatives Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Asian History For You
Art of War: The Definitive Interpretation of Sun Tzu's Classic Book of Strategy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Climb: Tragic Ambitions on Everest Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shogun: The Life of Tokugawa Ieyasu Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of Caste (Oprah's Book Club): by Isabel Wilkerson - The Origins of Our Discontents - A Comprehensive Summary Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Art of War: Illustrated Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Vory: Russia's Super Mafia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unit 731: The Forgotten Asian Auschwitz Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Yakuza: life and death in the Japanese underworld Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGhosts of the Tsunami: Death and Life in Japan's Disaster Zone Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Forgotten Highlander: An Incredible WWII Story of Survival in the Pacific Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Art of War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-1962 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Inglorious Empire: what the British did to India Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rasputin: Faith, Power, and the Twilight of the Romanovs Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gulag Archipelago: The Authorized Abridgement Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of 'brainwashing' in China Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Revolution of the Mind: Higher Learning among the Bolsheviks, 1918–1929 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 3]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Unit 731: Testimony Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Genghis Khan: A Life From Beginning to End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5To Love and Be Loved: A Personal Portrait of Mother Teresa Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 2]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Red Hotel: Moscow 1941, the Metropol Hotel, and the Untold Story of Stalin's Propaganda War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Last Wild Men of Borneo
0 ratings0 reviews