One of the world's most romanticized spaces, the Serengeti is more imaginary than real by the West. Even those who have worked to "conserve" the Serengeti have brought with them their own cultures' ideas about what and who is fit to live on it, and often those who have lived out their lives on it are regarded as poachers and more or less as unworthy of this singular and evocative space. Shetler (African and world history, Goshen College) analyzes the landscape memory of the Serengeti within the social identities of the people of the western portion of it, identifying core spatial images and testing them against archaeological, linguistic, ethnographic, ecological and archival evidence. She deals with past ways of seeing and using the landscape in ecological, social and sacred ways, and the relationship between landscape memory and historical challenges of colonial and post-colonial times. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)