Walker takes the reader on a journey that traces the ivory trade through human history, and shows how exchange in this much-desired material came to shape human--and animal--history.

Reviews

With a mix of appalled testimony and meticulous research, Walker (A Certain Curve of Horn) traces the story of ivory from Paleolithic times to the present and the devastation the ivory trade has wrought on African and Asian elephants--by one estimate, 2.8 million were killed between 1850 and 1914. At the height of the 19th century craze for ivory--which included a savage dependence on slaves to transport tusks to African trading centers--it was used for sacred artifacts, piano keys, pistol grips, toothpicks and billiard balls. By the 1980s, poaching threatened the last herds in Africa, leading to a worldwide ban on international trade, but with unintended consequences from laws so restrictive no ivory could be sold at all. By 1994, nine African nations had stockpiled 100 tons of "pickup" ivory, harvested from elephants that had died a natural death. This "great gift that the elephant leaves at the end of its life," writes Walker, should be sold to help conserve endangered herds, a controversial proposal that spotlights the deep divide between ardent supporters of continuing the ban and conservationists concerned about the future of the elephant, now "more important than the treasure it supplies." 16 pages of illus. (Jan.) Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.

A journalist who has been reporting on Africa for more than 20 years examines what the ivory trade has meant for humans and animals alike. Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.

"Well-written and informative."--"Foreign Affairs"
"[An] entertaining chronicle..."Ivory's Ghosts" admirably tells the story of this enchanting substance while making clear that as long as there are elephants, there will be ivory. Now, surely, it is ivory's turn to help ensure that there will always be elephants."--Leon Lazaroff, "The Hartford Courant"
"Walker provides sensitive and insightful analysis...Ivory, he acknowledges, is as wondrous as the creatures that produce it...Walker sees the future of elephants not in an absolute ban on all ivory, but in a system of sustainable harvesting and wildlife management. It's a difficult balancing act, to be sure, but ivory can its bloody past...to become a self-renewing resource which can fund national parks, stabilize local economies, and preserve the impressive creatures that make it."--Laurence A. Marschall, "Natural History"
"[A] tour de force examination of the history of ivory, humankind's lust for this exquisi