The Human Aviary

A Pictorial Discovery of New Guinea

by George Holton and Kenneth E. Read

Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1971, [First Edition], ISBN 684123851, colour photographs throughout, colour photographic frontispiece, hardcover, dustjacket

Very Good Condition, minor edge and shelf wear to edges and corners, no inscriptions, dustjacket shows some edge and shelf wear with some rubbing, bumping, creasing, chipping and small tears to edges and corners, a little peeling (see photographs)

“The Human Aviary is an evocative profile of New Guinea, presenting in prose and in pictures a feeling for an appreciation of life on that exotic island.
It provides gleams of such aspects of New Guinea culture as domestic arrangements, wealth and forms of leadership, warfare, local organisation, and religious beliefs.  And it offers glimpses of the natural environment in which the human life is found, the strange birds and plants and land forms.  The numerous colorful and striking photographs give visual reinforcement to the text, and the text illuminates the photographs by providing them with more general significance.
The Human Aviary demonstrates that New Guinea culture, its goals and its beliefs, is not a bizarre mutation but lies within the mainstream of man’s cultural evolution; that its people are moved by the materialistic goals that characterize the “American dream”; that they, like all men, have developed institutionalized answers to the perennial questions of “Who am I?” and “What is man?””