New Releases by Peter Matthiessen

In its heyday (1400-1600), The Kingdom of Lo dominated the Kali Gandaki River trade between India and Tibet. By the 18th century Lo had lost control over this trade and had been incorporated into the modern Kingdom of Nepal. Isolated deep in the Himalaya, Lo''s heriditary rajas retained most of their feudal powers and the area remained closed to the outside world until 1991. In the spring of 1992, author Peter Matthiessen and correspondent-photographer Thomas Laird traveled deep in the secret valley of Sao Kohla, tucked high in the northernmost reaches of the Himalaya. They were the first Westerners to venture there in thirty years. Matthiessen''s expansive narrative and Laird''s poignant photographs reveal a place where mountains five miles high cast their shadows over the deepest canyon in the world; where 150-million-year-old fossils rise to the light of day at 13,000 feet; and where mountain nomads spend their lives herding their flocks across desolate slopes and through desert valleys, "utterly lost in the eternal earth and air".

An “indescribably touching, extraordinarily intelligent" (Los Angeles Times Book Review) chronicle of a fatal gun-battle between FBI agents and American Indian Movement activists by renowned writer Peter Matthiessen (1927-2014), author of the National Book Award-winning The Snow Leopard and the novel In Paradise On a hot June morning in 1975, a desperate shoot-out between FBI agents and Native Americans near Wounded Knee, South Dakota, left an Indian and two federal agents dead. Four members of the American Indian Movement were indicted on murder charges, and one, Leonard Peltier, was convicted and is now serving consecutive life sentences in a federal penitentiary. Behind this violent chain of events lie issues of great complexity and profound historical resonance, brilliantly explicated by Peter Matthiessen in this controversial book. Kept off the shelves for eight years because of one of the most protracted and bitterly fought legal cases in publishing history, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse reveals the Lakota tribe’s long struggle with the U.S. government, and makes clear why the traditional Indian concept of the earth is so important at a time when increasing populations are destroying the precious resources of our world.

After winning an eight year legal battle, here is the controversial book that powerfully sheds new light on the plight of Native Americans. Matthiessen''s urgent accounts and absorbing journalistic details make it impossible to ignore the message they so eloquently proclaim.

En septembre 1973, Peter Matthiessen part pour le Dolpo, une région du Népal située à la frontière du Tibet, avec le zoologiste George Schaller qui veut observer des léopards des neiges. Dans ce journal de route, il apparaît très vite que Matthiessen vit cette expédition comme une aventure plus spirituelle que véritablement scientifique. Pour lui, adepte du bouddhisme zen, ce sera surtout un pèlerinage à l''ancien monastère de Shey Gompa et, enfin, un voyage hors de la "civilisation" du XXe siècle.

A classic work of nature and humanity, by renowned writer Peter Matthiessen (1927-2014), author of the National Book Award-winning The Snow Leopard and the new novel In Paradise Peter Matthiessen crisscrossed 20,000 miles of the South American wilderness, from the Amazon rain forests to Machu Picchu, high in the Andes, down to Tierra del Fuego and back. He followed the trails of old explorers, encountered river bandits, wild tribesmen, and the evidence of ancient ruins, and discovered fossils in the depths of the Peruvian jungle. Filled with observations and descriptions of the people and the fading wildlife of this vast world to the south, The Cloud Forest is his incisive, wry report of his expedition into some of the last and most exotic wild terrains in the world. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

A remarkable firsthand view of a lost culture in all its simplicity and violence by renowned writer Peter Matthiessen (1927 to 2014), author of the National Book Award–winning The Snow Leopard and the novel In Paradise. In the Baliem Valley in central New Guinea live the Kurelu, a Stone Age tribe that survived into the twentieth century. Peter Matthiessen visited the Kurelu with the Harvard-Peabody Expedition in 1961 and wrote Under the Mountain Wall as an account not of the expedition, but of the great warrior Weaklekek, the swineherd Tukum, U-mue and his family, and the boy Weake, killed in a surprise raid. Matthiessen observes these people in their timeless rhythm of work and play and war, of gardening and wood gathering, feasts and funerals, pig stealing and ambushes. Drawing on his great skills as a naturalist and novelist, Matthiessen offers an exceptional account of an ancient culture on the brink of incalculable change.

A history of the North American wilderness and its creatures, with lists and drawings of rare, threatened, and extinct species.

Sara''s birthday visit to the zoo with her brother is disappointing until they meet a strange man who tells them about the Great Auk hiding in the seal pool.

Expedition to Nunivak in 1964 led by John Teal to capture Ovibos moschatus calves to form the nucleus of a permanent domestic herd. A shorter version first appeared in the ''New Yorker'' magazine.

An American journalist pursues an old Communist leader, disgraced and sought by his own party, through back streets of Paris.