A characteristically unconventional and engaging work, CarmelSchrire's Tigers in Africa: Stalking the Past at the Cape of Good Hope interweavessuch diverse themes as colonial slavery and apartheid, human and carnivoreevolution, and science and romance to show how we create the past and understand thepresent.Schrire recounts the significance of thepalaeontological findings of Raymond Dart, Robert Ardrey, and Glynn Isaac addressinga famous dispute about carnivore evolution that flourished in the heyday ofapartheid. She sets pioneering exploration of the globe against archaeologicalsurveys and romantic quests in the African desert and contrasts the dark days ofcolonial slavery at the Cape with the bright prospects of Nelson Mandela's legacythere.