Travels on the Edge A Naturalist’s Notes from the Back of Beyond

Adventure tales told, with humanity and warmth, about some of the world’s most remote and fascinating places and their inhabitants

For almost fifty years, Robert McCracken Peck has traveled the world as the official photographer, historian, and chronicler of scientific expeditions from the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, America’s oldest natural history institution, now part of Drexel University. He has discovered three new frogs in the Andes, collected several new species of fish on the Orinoco River, and helped study little-known insects in rarely visited parts of Africa and the Caribbean. He has made seven extensive expeditions to Mongolia to study its wildlife and document the fast-changing lives of its nomadic herdsmen. He has witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall, traveled with camel caravans across the Gobi Desert, faced down headhunters in Ecuador, and been put under house arrest in China.

Travels on the Edge is a collection of stand-alone, but related, essays recounting his remarkable experiences. Lavishly illustrated, the book not only carries readers to some of the most remote and inaccessible parts of the world but also celebrates the challenges and joys of scientific research. Its author brings a rich human perspective to regions few people have had a chance to explore and brings the people and wildlife he found there to life through his writing and photos.

Historian, naturalist, writer, and world traveler, Robert McCracken Peck holds a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and a master of arts degree from the Winterthur Program in American Cultural History, University of Delaware. Widely published, Peck is the author of Land of the Eagle: A Natural History of North America, the companion volume to the eight-part BBC/PBS television series of the same title. It was named one of the most notable natural history/science books of the year by the New York Times Book Review. As Senior Fellow of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, he served as chronicler, historian, and photographer of many scientific research expeditions around the world. In 1988 a new species of South American frog, one of three he discovered in the upper Amazon basin in Ecuador, was named in his honor.

"This delightful collection of essays from a much-traveled scientist, who has spent much of his life 'off the beaten track,' is both vivid and philosophical. It is consummate travel writing."—Robin Hanbury-Tenison, author of The Oxford Book of Exploration

"Known to wide audiences as an erudite and invariably entertaining writer on natural history, Bob Peck, in this mesmerizing new and deeply personal book, sets a new standard for travel writing. A wily, resilient adventurer, he is always ready to face the hardships that come with venturing into places where American Express cards aren’t accepted. Whether he describes almost missing the Trans-Siberian Express after stepping off in the middle of nowhere, cruising through the Mongolian steppe with a car leaking fluids, or being mistaken for Ernest Hemingway in Cuba, Peck excels at evocative scene-setting and situational comedy. As a bonus, he also tells us how he once saved a boy from dying from appendicitis. Thanks to Peck’s well-calibrated sense of humor, evident expertise, and unfailing kindness to those he encounters, Travels on the Edge is an irresistibly charming, humane, and uplifting book."—Christoph Irmscher, author of The Poetics of Natural History

"Robert Peck is a very lucky man. As a humanities scholar at the venerable Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University he has, for almost half a century, had the privilege and delight of traveling with passionate scientists to some of the remotest places on earth – in farthest Asia, Africa and South America. He had plenty of luck, good and bad, with a colorful range of local people and survival of near-accidents. Peck tells these adventures with gusto, accuracy, and charm."—John Hemming, former Director of the Royal Geographical Society

"Bob Peck’s reflections on travel to little-known parts of the world transport the reader back in time to an age of exploration that would have been familiar to Maria Sibylla Merian or Sir Richard Burton. He takes us to many places we’d like to go (and a few we wouldn’t), and makes us feel we’ve been there. Reading his book is like traveling with a friend."—Walton Ford, artist
"One of life's greatest pleasures is surely armchair travel with Bob Peck. Travels on the Edge is a distillation of his very best."—Tim Flannery, author of Here on Earth: A Natural History of the Planet

"Bob Peck gives us an exhilarating journey through some of the world's most remote and fascinating places. Blending natural history, personal adventure, and keen cultural observation, Peck brings to life decades of expeditionary travel with eloquence, humanity, and warmth. His stories, drawn from nearly fifty years of fieldwork, offer a riveting adventure for anyone curious about nature, travel, and the human experience at the edge of the known world."—Neil Shubin, author of Your Inner Fish and Some Assembly Required