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THE LAST WILD MEN OF BORNEO: A True Story of Death and Treasure
See moreTwo 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, saint and myth converge.
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“The Last Wild Men of Borneo is the best book about the ‘Western hunger for Eastern solace,’ as Carl Hoffman neatly puts it, you’ll probably ever read. Besides the two remarkable men he portrays, the Swiss purist and the swashbuckling American dealer in tribal art, there is Hoffman himself, grappling literally and eloquently with his own fantasies about the world being destroyed in Borneo.”
William FinneganPulitzer Prize winning author of Barbarian Days -
“A marvelously told and important story: Carl Hoffman guides us on a compelling and disturbing journey in the footsteps of two Western adventurers who penetrated to the wildest heart of Borneo on two very different paths. At the same time, international forces of greed and corruption closed in on the huge island. Hoffman tells a heart-breaking story of environmental and cultural loss and human resilience. He grasps the emotional power of wildness both for Westerners from afar and for indigenous peoples who call it home. ”
Peter Starkauthor of Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire -
"I finished The Last Wild Men of Borneo in one long delicious gulp. It is a tree bristling with goodies: descriptions of the complex forest; the Penan; Hoffman's treasure hunts; above all, the strange dynamic between Bruno Manser and Michael Palmieri – opposites but also equals – and himself. He earns the right to be among them, a firefly lighting up their cul-de-sacs to bring back a shimmering cornucopia of adventure, biography, mystery, tragedy.”
Nicholas Shakespeareauthor of Bruce Chatwin and In Tasmania -
“Carl Hoffman's thrilling The Last Wild Men of Borneo explores both the allure and dangers of the world's most untamed environment. At once a psychological inquiry, a portrait of a disappearing tribal culture, and an on-the-ground adventure story, Hoffman's narrative is above all a mesmerizing tale of two men who break their bonds with civilization in pursuit of deeper meaning - and the tragedy that befalls one of them.”
Joshua Hammerauthor of The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu
About the author
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Carl Hoffman
More about the authorCarl Hoffman is the author of the critically acclaimed New York Times bestselling Savage Harvest: A Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism, and Michael Rockefeller’s Tragic Quest, which was a New York Times “Editor’s Choice,” a NY Times best seller and one of the Washington Post’s 50 notable books of 2014.
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previous book
Savage Harvest
A Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism, and Michael Rockefeller’s Tragic Quest for Primitive ArtRead More -
previous book
The Lunatic Express
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