num_pages: 186
description: The Emperor and the Elephants is a deeply moving memoir chronicling one Peace Corps volunteers fascinating experiences in the Central African Republic during the late 1970s. After hiking the Appalachian Trail in 1975 author Richard W. Carroll joined the Peace Corps signing on as a fisheries extension agent in the heart of Africa. Balancing the rose-tinted writings of an optimistic twenty-three-year-old volunteer with pragmatic reflections from over forty years later most of which he spent in Africa as a wildlife conservationist for the World Wildlife Fund Carroll draws readers into a wildly unique place and time. In 1977 under the brutal rule of Jean-Bidel Bokassa the self-proclaimed president for life the Central African Republic became the Central African Empire and its against this political backdrop that Carroll servedfirst in small villages discovering the rich cultures of a warm and welcoming people then as a wildlife biologist in Manovo-Gounda St. Floris National Park in the remote north. The Emperor and the Elephants abounds with vivid often poetic descriptions of the wildlife close encounters peaceful revelations and thoughtful reflections on a location thats as far from mountains and ocean as one can get on planet Earth.
language: English
title: The Emperor and the Elephants: A Peace Corps Volunteer's Story of Life During the Late 1970s in the Central African Empire
publisher: Peace Corps Writers