BENJAMIN GARDNER is an associate professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington Bothell, where he teaches global studies, cultural studies, and environmental studies. He is also the chair of the African Studies Program at the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington.

Based on more than two decades of engagement with the Maasai, this study is a landmark in a new kind of ‘living geography’ in which people play the starring role. Conservation efforts that consist primarily of enclosure and dispossession have led the Maasai to become the unlikely cheerleaders for neoliberalism and the hostile detractors of even the best-intentioned efforts of the Tanzanian state (and those of the earlier, less well-intentioned British and German colonial governments) to protect the Serengeti as a world treasure. When such treasures are sequestered for the enjoyment of even the most ecofriendly tourists—to say nothing of wealthy trophy hunters from the Middle East—they have been fiercely resisted by the proud people who have tended this part of the Serengeti for centuries. Selling the Serengeti is itself a gem of a book, one that Gardner has polished and passed on generously to a world in need of its marvels.

BENJAMIN GARDNER is an associate professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington Bothell, where he teaches global studies, cultural studies, and environmental studies. He is also the chair of the African Studies Program at the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington.

Based on more than two decades of engagement with the Maasai, this study is a landmark in a new kind of ‘living geography’ in which people play the starring role. Conservation efforts that consist primarily of enclosure and dispossession have led the Maasai to become the unlikely cheerleaders for neoliberalism and the hostile detractors of even the best-intentioned efforts of the Tanzanian state (and those of the earlier, less well-intentioned British and German colonial governments) to protect the Serengeti as a world treasure. When such treasures are sequestered for the enjoyment of even the most ecofriendly tourists—to say nothing of wealthy trophy hunters from the Middle East—they have been fiercely resisted by the proud people who have tended this part of the Serengeti for centuries. Selling the Serengeti is itself a gem of a book, one that Gardner has polished and passed on generously to a world in need of its marvels.

BENJAMIN GARDNER is an associate professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington Bothell, where he teaches global studies, cultural studies, and environmental studies. He is also the chair of the African Studies Program at the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington.

Based on more than two decades of engagement with the Maasai, this study is a landmark in a new kind of ‘living geography’ in which people play the starring role. Conservation efforts that consist primarily of enclosure and dispossession have led the Maasai to become the unlikely cheerleaders for neoliberalism and the hostile detractors of even the best-intentioned efforts of the Tanzanian state (and those of the earlier, less well-intentioned British and German colonial governments) to protect the Serengeti as a world treasure. When such treasures are sequestered for the enjoyment of even the most ecofriendly tourists—to say nothing of wealthy trophy hunters from the Middle East—they have been fiercely resisted by the proud people who have tended this part of the Serengeti for centuries. Selling the Serengeti is itself a gem of a book, one that Gardner has polished and passed on generously to a world in need of its marvels.