Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18191 in Books
• Published on: 2009-05-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781599215556
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Turning from the Iraq War, author and journalist Laufer (Mission Rejected: U.S. Soldiers Who Say No to Iraq) decided to focus on the presumably innocuous business of butterflies. There, he found yet more violence, corruption and unanswered questions, resulting in another compelling all-angles examination. Fluttering across the globe for at least 40 million years, Lepidoptera face increasing threats in modern times, largely from habitat loss and pesticides. Amateur and professional butterfly experts weigh in on everything from art to conservation, breeding and butterfly sex to development and wing colors, as well as the meaning of their fascination for humans. Lepidopterology contains a surprising stack of unsolved mysteries, including the process of metamorphosis: what goes on in the chrysalis, in which every cell of the caterpillar's body liquefies before reconstituting into a butterfly, might as well be magic. Laufer also finds controversy in commercial breeding and discovers "worldwide criminal operations" in butterfly poaching and smuggling (in which driving species to near extinction is a standard practice for pushing up specimen prices). In casual prose, Laufer delivers an absorbing science lesson for fans of the colorful bugs.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post
From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by Andrew Ervin "To me," Peter Laufer writes early in "The Dangerous World of Butterflies," "journalism is an all-or-nothing calling. A real journalist is a journalist to the grave." But even the toughest reporters can get worn out. Laufer, the author of many hard-edged books -- about the rise of neo-Nazism, vigilantes on the Mexican-American border and, more recently, the suffering of soldiers returning from Iraq -- has decided to take on a more lighthearted subject: butterflies. He begins his sally in Nicaragua, where he learns of a conflict between the "butterfly huggers" of the North American Butterfly Association and the International Butterfly Breeders Association over the staged release of butterflies at public events. His investigation reveals a sordid underworld of butterfly hobbyists in which "nefarious collectors fuel criminal butterfly poachers worldwide." Laufer writes with humor, as if to concede that he's trying too hard to find an exciting story where one doesn't exist. Nevertheless, his book is charming and his attention to detail, combined with a real gift for describing these fascinating characters -- he calls entomologist Arthur Shapiro "an endless litany of intriguing butterfly stories" -- made me want to read everything else he has written. And I'm certain to look differently at the butterflies in my own backyard, knowing now how far they may have traveled to get there.
Copyright 2009, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

Review

Customer Reviews

Peter Laufer's Adventure Yields Another Enjoyable and Inspiring Read
Fans of Peter Laufer's life of journalistic adventure as expressed in his shelf full of remarkable books (Mission Rejected, Exodus To Berlin, Made in Mexico, Iron Curtain Rising, etc.) have yet another exciting read to enjoy. But this time, the intrepid Laufer, who has won almost every major award for journalistic excellence and often has had to risk life and limb to get the story, does a complete change of pace. He takes you by the hand and leads you from jungles to back alleys, as we enter the sometimes bizarre, sometimes berserk world of Butterflies and the people who love them. A theme that runs through Laufer's previous works--the quest for decency in the midst of corruption--emerges here as well. Laufer finds a hard-as-nails cop whose life work is the protection of nature's most fragile species. Through interview and observation, Laufer vividly brings that cop to life along with a host of other true life characters who together, make this book a wonderful weekend of escape and reading pleasure. I bought 3 as gifts for close friends.

A Sonoma County, California, newspaper review
This intriguing review of the book was in Laufer's hometown newspaper, the North Bay Bohemian.

Pins and Needles

Peter Laufer's dangerous world of butterflies

By P. Joseph Potocki

It wouldn't be Holy Week in Chihuahua without the tacos--Tarahumara butterfly pupae tacos--slathered in special seasonal sauce, to be exact. And in Australia, sweet, fire-roasted bugongs, their wings and legs removed, have long been an aboriginal gastric delight.

In his latest book, The Dangerous World of Butterflies: The Startling Subculture of Criminals, Collectors, and Conservationists (Lyons Press; $24.95) author, broadcaster and journalist Peter Laufer turns from weighty subjects like war, politics and foreign policy to the ephemeral but sometimes deadly world of butterflies.

And it all began as a joke. Based in Bodega Bay, Laufer was speaking at a promotional event in Bellingham, Wash., for the launch of his previous book Hope Is a Tattered Flag. An attendee inquired after the nature of his next effort. Having addressed a wide range of serious topics in 16 previous books, Laufer off-handedly remarked that perhaps he'd next amuse himself with "butterflies and flowers."

The Bellingham event happened to be broadcast on C-SPAN. A woman watching the program took Laufer for his word and invited him to her remote butterfly reserva in Nicaragua. Thus Laufer's musing morphed into what turns out to be colorfully flightful and sometimes dangerous business.

Laufer begins by regaling us with stories of drunken butterflies, flight dynamics, communication systems, pompous experts, breeders and fluttering loads of exoterica. He lavishes such facts as:

* There is no official name for a mass of butterflies;
* Experts still debate the butterfly's role in nature;
* No new species has been discovered in America for the past 50 years;
* The website IHateButterflies.com is for lepidopterophobs--people who "fear, are disgusted by, and generally dislike butterflies";
* Monarchs make haste from Canada to winter in Mexico, but expend four or five generations before finally making it back.
Judging from this, one might get the notion that here we have a modestly pleasant toss. But reading into the heart of the book, things turn serious.

Laufer profiles Hisayoshi Kojima, the man who calls himself "the world's most wanted butterfly smuggler." Laufer's Kojima story is a mini detective thriller. It begins with Fish and Wildlife Service agent Ed Newcomer, who picked up a cold case investigation of the smuggler begun by his agency in 1999. Newcomer went undercover, tenaciously tracking Kojima's sales of rare and threatened butterfly species. Newcomer stuck with the case until Kojima was finally sent to federal prison, seven years later. Laufer's telling includes plot twists, false starts, ego strokes, exhilaration and even unrequited lust.

But as it turns out, Kojima's tale was just a tease for the serious cloak and dagger stuff that follows. He was a smuggler, yes, but Kojima was just a middle-man.

The violent butterfly baddies are the poachers. Laufer quotes naturalist and biologist Vladimir Dinets, who tells him, "Professional poachers are tough people, excellent mountaineers, and they try to make friends with local warlords and drug smugglers." Dinets, who has tracked the trade on expeditions into Central Asia, points to the sophisticated espionage technologies and techniques employed by the poachers, describing them as "James Bond-style."

Laufer also tells of forest guards in Darjeeling protecting what are characterized as national living treasures, confronting poachers armed with AK-47s, while the guards themselves carry mere sticks; and of the sensational Bengali court case of a Czech beetle research aide convicted of poaching rare butterflies who subsequently fled from justice.

But at least one butterfly expert, University of Florida's Thomas Emmel, feels all the legal fuss is much ado about nothing. According to Emmel, "No butterfly has been exterminated by overcollecting, ever."

It's difficult to pin down the practical, never mind the intrinsic value of butterflies. While one expert says, "Butterflies are hope," another counters, "They're really just pretty-colored cockroaches." No matter personal opinion, though, Laufer's The Dangerous World of Butterflies packs real entertainment wallop in a book filled with informed tidbits custom-designed for cocktail hour. In fact, did you know that Ron Boender, the proprietor of Florida's Butterfly World, is a big Bill O'Reilly fan? "I think he does a good job of presenting the other side of the story." Indeed. And so does Laufer.

I'm impressed
As a lifelong admirer of butterflies, I never imagined that these tiny creatures would be at the center of so much darkness. This book takes the reader on a scary journey. At the same time, the author treats his subject with great sensitivity and thoroughness. It's almost poetic.

Nothing else I've ever read about butterflies even comes close to this. Congratulations on wonderful research. Great work, Mr. Laufer.