Keywords New Release

Merrill Sapp is a cognitive psychologist, physician assistant, professor, and student of nature. She has traveled the world to learn about and work in the service of elephants. She teaches at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri.

“This touching and insightful book introduces us to elephants as they are to themselves, and to us
when we get to know them: fully elephant persons, with their own particular glories, tragedies and
concerns in which we can recognize our own. The author does this with a combination of head and
heart, of science and love, which brings out the best of each. Indeed, I know of no other way to save
either the elephants or ourselves. Reading Knowing Wonder is an urgent privilege.”
—Patrick Curry, author of Ecological Ethics and Editor-in-Chief of The Ecological Citizen

“What elevates Knowing Wonder from a rich and informed natural history to an engrossing, heart-rending story is the imaginative introduction of Lua and Moyo, African elephants, and their kin, who we follow through
a world wracked and ravaged by human appetites and the vagaries of climate change. Astonished by the Luangwa Valley of Eastern Zambia that Sapp has brought to the page and equally intrigued and surprised
by how these creatures make their way in an increasingly unpredictable world, I have come to appreciate that it is only through the hard truths of
the non-human world that we can truly come to understand ourselves.”
—James Raffan, explorer and author of Ice Walker (2020)