{"product_id":"9781935925705","title":"The Emperor and the Elephants: A Peace Corps Volunteer's Story of Life During the Late 1970s in the Central African Empire","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Emperor and the Elephants\u003c\/i\u003e is a deeply moving memoir chronicling one Peace Corps volunteer's fascinating experiences in the Central African Republic during the late 1970s.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAfter hiking the Appalachian Trail in 1975, author Richard W. Carroll joined the Peace Corps, signing on as a fisheries extension agent in the heart of Africa. Balancing the rose-tinted writings of an optimistic twenty-three-year-old volunteer with pragmatic reflections from over forty years later, most of which he spent in Africa as a wildlife conservationist for the World Wildlife Fund, Carroll draws readers into a wildly unique place and time.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn 1977, under the brutal rule of Jean-Bidel Bokassa, the self-proclaimed president for life, the Central African Republic became the Central African Empire, and it's against this political backdrop that Carroll served-first in small villages, discovering the rich cultures of a warm and welcoming people, then as a wildlife biologist in Manovo-Gounda St. Floris National Park, in the remote north.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Emperor and the Elephants\u003c\/i\u003e abounds with vivid, often poetic descriptions of the wildlife, close encounters, peaceful revelations, and thoughtful reflections on a location that's as far from mountains and ocean as one can get on planet Earth.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Peace Corps Writers","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47061694480624,"sku":"9781935925705","price":15.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781935925705_p0.jpg?v=1763658251","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781935925705","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}