National Geographic 1988 August

National Geographic – August 1988
Publisher: National Geographic | ISBN: none (lemurs didn’t demand ISBNs, just bananas) | Condition: Good (slightly rubbed, but more resilient than Madagascar’s ecosystems)
Presented to the world (and you) by Crappy Old Books

August 1988: Madonna was on the radio, Rain Man was in the cinema, and National Geographic was clinging to trees with wide-eyed lemurs on its cover. This issue declared Lemurs: On the Edge of Survival, which was both a conservation alarm and an excellent metaphor for anyone trying to assemble IKEA furniture. Two charismatic sifakas pose against bark, frozen somewhere between “help us” and “we invented parkour.”

But don’t be fooled by the cover’s furry ambassadors — inside, the table of contents is a buffet of human drama and geographical grandeur:

• Lemurs — Madagascar’s finest export, balancing on twigs while humanity debates whether saving them is worth postponing another logging concession.

• Annapolis: Camelot on the Bay — colonial chic meets nautical nostalgia, with boats polished shinier than Kennedy family anecdotes.

• Triumph of Daedalus — a human-powered flight that proved mankind can pedal its way into the air, so long as you don’t mind crash-landing shortly afterward.

• Frederic Remington: The Man, the Myth — cowboy painter, sculptor, and single-handed inventor of America’s sepia-toned Wild West mythos.

• The South Koreans — caught in a moment of transformation, hustling into modernity while still surrounded by kimchi and neon.

• Kyongju: Where Korea Began — a crash course in ancient tombs, stone pagodas, and why Korea’s roots go deeper than its semiconductor exports.

This copy is graded Good. Meaning: the spine holds steady, the centennial yellow border (1888–1988!) still frames history with pride, and the gloss has aged like a fine mullet haircut — shiny in parts, questionable in others. Pages may exhibit the faint smell of 1980s optimism, which pairs nicely with instant coffee and MTV reruns.

Why bother owning this relic?

• Because lemurs are basically furry existentialists in a tree.

• Because Daedalus proves you can strap wings to a bicycle and call it progress.

• Because Annapolis is Camelot, provided you squint.

• Because Korea in the ’80s was poised to out-produce your VCR, and this issue called it.

• Because nothing screams “I’m well-read” like having a magazine where lemurs share page space with cowboys and pagodas.

So here it is: National Geographic, August 1988 — a glossy time capsule where Madagascar meets Maryland, ancient Korea shares the spotlight with a cowboy painter, and human-powered flight looked like the future. Available now from Crappy Old Books, where survival on the edge is our business model too.

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