Listen free for 30 days

  • American Buffalo

  • In Search of a Lost Icon
  • Written by: Steven Rinella
  • Narrated by: Steven Rinella
  • Length: 7 hrs and 42 mins
  • 4.9 out of 5 stars (690 ratings)

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo + applicable taxes after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
American Buffalo cover art

American Buffalo

Written by: Steven Rinella
Narrated by: Steven Rinella
Try for $0.00

$14.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $30.70

Buy Now for $30.70

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Tax where applicable.

Publisher's Summary

From the host of the Travel Channel’s The Wild Within.

A hunt for the American buffalo - an adventurous, fascinating examination of an animal that has haunted the American imagination. 

In 2005, Steven Rinella won a lottery permit to hunt for a wild buffalo, or American bison, in the Alaskan wilderness. Despite the odds - there’s only a two percent chance of drawing the permit, and fewer than 20 percent of those hunters are successful - Rinella managed to kill a buffalo on a snow-covered mountainside and then raft the meat back to civilization while being trailed by grizzly bears and suffering from hypothermia. Throughout these adventures, Rinella found himself contemplating his own place among the 14,000 years’ worth of buffalo hunters in North America, as well as the buffalo’s place in the American experience. At the time of the Revolutionary War, North America was home to approximately 40 million buffalo, the largest herd of big mammals on the planet, but by the mid-1890s only a few hundred remained. Now that the buffalo is on the verge of a dramatic ecological recovery across the West, Americans are faced with the challenge of how, and if, we can dare to share our land with a beast that is the embodiment of the American wilderness. 

American Buffalo is a narrative tale of Rinella’s hunt. But beyond that, it is the story of the many ways in which the buffalo has shaped our national identity. Rinella takes us across the continent in search of the buffalo’s past, present, and future: to the Bering Land Bridge, where scientists search for buffalo bones amid artifacts of the New World’s earliest human inhabitants; to buffalo jumps where Native Americans once ran buffalo over cliffs by the thousands; to the Detroit Carbon works, a “bone charcoal” plant that made fortunes in the late 1800s by turning millions of tons of buffalo bones into bone meal, black dye, and fine china; and even to an abattoir turned fashion mecca in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District, where a depressed buffalo named Black Diamond met his fate after serving as the model for the American nickel. 

 Rinella’s erudition and exuberance, combined with his gift for storytelling, make him the perfect guide for a book that combines outdoor adventure with a quirky blend of facts and observations about history, biology, and the natural world. Both a captivating narrative and a book of environmental and historical significance, American Buffalo tells us as much about ourselves as Americans as it does about the creature who perhaps best of all embodies the American ethos.

©2008, 2009 Steven Rinella (P)2019 Random House Audio

What the critics say

“This is some of the best writing on our great national beast since George Catlin - and that was in 1841. A real triumph.” (Bill McKibben, author The Bill McKibben Reader)
 

“This is a big-game hunting story like no other: Steven Rinella is in search of an animal, quite literally. But also historically, existentially, and maybe even spiritually. Follow him on this curious armed quest - and, like him, you will quickly find yourself immersed in the fate of our mightiest and most talismanic beast.” (Hampton Sides, author of Blood and Thunder)

“Moving and downright funny...Rinella writes with authority about the process of turning a living creature into steak, and easily renders an enormous amount of historical and scientific information into a thoroughly engaging narrative.” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) 

What listeners say about American Buffalo

Average Customer Ratings
Overall
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    628
  • 4 Stars
    56
  • 3 Stars
    5
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    546
  • 4 Stars
    40
  • 3 Stars
    6
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1
Story
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    541
  • 4 Stars
    40
  • 3 Stars
    6
  • 2 Stars
    3
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Amazing Narration

Steven rinella did an amazing job narrating this book. would recommend to hunters and non-hunters

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

How an audiobook should be

Engaging, funny and extremely informative. Without a doubt the best audiobook experience I have partaken in.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Sh
  • 2020-01-07

excellent

stunning detail it made you feel the cold harshness of the wilderness as if you were there with Steve throughout the entire journey.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

An incredible story of an incredible animal

Loved this book from start to finish, Rinella was an amazing story teller. Definitely worth the listen.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Entertaining and Educational :)

Loved the intertwined personal stories with historical information. I will listen to this story again.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great read.

Informative, educational, enthralling. Cannot wait to read again. Steven Rinella is someone I really look up to.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

History and Hunting. Excellent book.

Fantastic book and great story. The blend of history and storytelling really work well.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars
  • JC
  • 2019-12-11

Great True Story!

Steve has an excellent narration voice, and the fact that it's his own work makes it all that more the better. A great tale of adventure and history. I enjoyed how the story jumped back and forth from Steve's quest for the histroy of the buffalo and his hunt for the buffalo.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

An incredible insight into hunting and history.

Steven Rinella presents his hunting expedition in a way that makes you feel like your there in the dying light, smelling the frost in the air and feeling the weight of your pack.
I really appreciate how he examines the deeper meaning of hunting, the thrill and the trials, then fills it in with facts and myth both past and present.
Particular to this book is the immense role bison have played in history, as well as to humanity. You come way from this realizing how bison have shaped nations and caused the destruction of others, and how human nature drove them to and from extinction.
You gain a further respect for the myriad of lives that built the world we know, not only that of human and bison but any of the amazing creatures we have relied upon or exploited in the past.
This is a truely wonderful world we live in, and it deserves every scrap of reverence we can give.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great Book!

Not only did Steven’s hunt make a great story, but his look back over the history of the buffalo in North America was thorough and extremely informative. Loved this book!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!