Twentieth-Century Man: The Wild Life of Peter Beard

(Hardback)

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An exuberant biography of the life of the iconic photographer and naturalist Peter Beard, whose life and work captured the cultural imagination

Peter Beard lived an astonishing life. The artist, wildlife photographer, and bon vivant enthralled and inspired both because of his work and his legendary lifestyle. A scion of American industry turned explorer of Africa and environmental advocate, Beard embodied the extremes of his time: grand adventurer and sexually voracious partier, friend of everyone from the Rolling Stones to Jackie Onassis to Andy Warhol to Karen Blixen. And Beard had a passionprobably more like an obsessionwith the faults of the entire human experiment, with the ways in which our consumption of the worlds resources have come to consume us all.

Beards outsize life and characterhis death-defying documentation of both the endangered wildlife of Africa, and, closer to home, some of the worlds most beautiful women for a range of fashion magazinesanimate this lively but authoritative biography. The journalist Christopher Wallace, long fascinated by Beards artistic legacy, adventurous spirit, and hard-partying persona, came to know him well later in Beards life. Capturing the varied social and cultural scenes that Beard moved through with glamorous ease over five decades, Wallace also makes a powerful case for the lasting impact of his work.

In Twentieth-Century Man, Wallace has rendered this towering figure in all of his contradictions and complexitiesa deeply romantic and idiosyncratic personality, beloved by so many, whose sensibilities nonetheless remained firmly rooted in an era characterized by racist and colonialist attitudes. Stirring and visceral, Twentieth-Century Man is the definitive portrait of Peter Beard.

Reviews

"The author succeeds in looking beyond Beard's surface appeal as the 'ideal avatar for our adventurous impulses, shirtless on a perpetual safari,' to explore what he calls Beard's fatalism, his "heartbreak over the destruction of the natural world...A vivid account of a life devoted to the African wild. Kirkus Reviews

Author Bio

Chris Wallace is the author of the highly-acclaimed debut novel The Pied Pipers Poison, also published by Flamingo. He lives in Edinburgh.