Episode 172: “Homesick for a World Unknown: The Life of George B. Schaller” with Miriam Horn
April 17, 2026
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Miriam Horn, author of Homesick for a World Unknown: The Life of George B. Schaller
Summary
In 1959, George Schaller entered the Virunga Mountains with nothing but a notebook and a folding chair. At a time when the world viewed the mountain gorilla as a savage, cinematic monster, George saw something else: a peaceful, social being whose world we were only just beginning to understand. By sitting lower than the silverbacks and trading his rifle for radical patience, he didn’t just study the wild; he became part of it.
George Schaller is the greatest field biologist of our time, having spent 70 years documenting Serengeti lions, Himalayan snow leopards, jaguars of the Brazilian Pantanal, the vast, emptying landscapes of Pakistan and Tibet, and more. How do you capture a life that spans 20,000 pages of field journals and led to the protection of land the size of France?
Joining us on the Rewilding Earth podcast is Miriam Horn, a New York Times bestselling author and conservationist whom George finally trusted to tell his story. Miriam has spent her career splitting time between the U.S. Forest Service, Environmental Defense Fund, and the high-level editorial worlds of Vanity Fair and The New York Times. She has what it takes to untangle the tendrils of a complicated life and present the reality of a bold, tough, beautiful existence.
In this episode, we dive into her new biography, Homesick for a World Unknown, exploring the man behind the myths and the “intangible values” that drive a lifetime of wild diplomacy.
In This Episode:
- The Folding Chair Method: Why George traded a gun for a seat in the dirt and how that changed the course of wildlife biology.
- The “Heart of Darkness” Myth: Challenging the preconceived notions of “beasts” and the true nature of the mountain gorilla.
- Lessons from the Arctic: How mentors like Olaus and Mardy Murie shaped George’s philosophy on the “intangible values” of wild beings.
- A Childhood in Conflict: How growing up in war-torn Berlin shaped George’s view that humans, not animals, are the most violent creatures on Earth.
- The “Great Dying” in Pakistan: Moving beyond the “dream world” of national parks to witness the reality of habitat loss in the 1970s.
- Wild Diplomacy: How an “awkward” man used the same observation skills he honed with gorillas to navigate the halls of power in Beijing and Islamabad.
- Homesick for a World Unknown: The emotional core of Schaller’s life — longing for a wildness that was already fading when he began.
- The 20,000-page Journey: Miriam’s experience sifting through seven decades of military-time field journals to find the man inside the scientist.
Extra Credit
- Reviving the Roar: George Schaller’s Borderland Jaguar Road Trip
- Tales from a Life in the Field with George Schaller (video recording of George Schaller, 2024)
- A Conversation with Field Biologist George Schaller
- John Davis’ review of Homesick for a World Unknown
- Get your copy of Homesick for a World Unknown: The Life of George B. Schaller here.
- Learn more at the author’s website.
- Book Giveaway Penguin Press until April 22nd!
Director of Digital Outreach (D.O.D.O.) for The Rewilding Institute
Host and Producer of the Rewilding Earth Podcast
Jack started Rewilding work as Executive Director of Sky Island Alliance in the mid-1990’s, organizing the Sky Island Wildlands Network design, ripping up illegal roads on forest service lands, installing wolf acclimatization pens on Ted Turner’s Ladder Ranch & conducting howling surveys to help make way for the final stage of the Lobo reintroduction program in the Southwest.
Through the years, Jack has worked with Dave Foreman and the Rewilding Gang to further Rewilding initiatives and education.