Books: A Natural Selection

THE DARK ROMANCE OF DIAN FOSSEY by Harold T.P. Hayes

Simon & Schuster; 351 pages; $21.95

The late Louis Leakey, for years the dominant male in the field of human- fossil studies, believed that women made better primate researchers than men. His Exhibit A was Jane Goodall, whose work on chimpanzees in Tanzania has been justly celebrated. Exhibit B also achieved acclaim but, on balance, muted the generalization. In 1966 Leakey sent Dian Fossey to the Congo slope of the Virunga volcanic forest to study the habits of the mountain gorilla. Fossey convinced the eminent prehistorian of her resolve with only...

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