A MAN OF THE WORLD

The former CEO of the National Geographic Society recounts his life and career.

For a century, National Geographic magazine, wrapped in its familiar bright-yellow cover, has been a journal of the world, “a trove of some 1,500 issues with more than 7,000 articles on subjects from anthropology to zoology.” Granted, writes Grosvenor—a descendant of Alexander Graham Bell as well as of the line of Grosvenors associated for generations with the magazine—some of its older content was racist, but that “was a product of a culture that has, thankfully, evolved.” Of particular interest to armchair adventurers are Grosvenor’s own adventures in the world. Working as a photographer and traveler, he took part in expeditions that included an exploration of the Arctic Sea and accompanying then-President Dwight Eisenhower on a journey to Afghanistan and Iran, a trip that yielded a fine image of the president “looking down from Air Force One at the storied Khyber Pass.” Less interesting are the author’s long disquisitions on office politics and personality clashes, as with a legal counsel who “lobbed the vast majority” of intimations that Grosvenor was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. (As Grosvenor reveals through accounts of vacations at the family mansion in Cape Breton and such, it’s clear he grew up with considerable privilege.) Still, students of publishing history will find a few gems here: an in-house controversy over whether Robert Peary ever reached the North Pole on a trip funded by the parent National Geographical Society or the decision to sell the ailing magazine, which had “become a global media company,” to Rupert Murdoch. The magazine, “part of the package of media assets Fox jettisoned in 2019,” was subsequently acquired by Disney, which Grosvenor reckons a better fit.

A middling memoir but with bright spots from venues scattered across the globe.