Jane Goodall and Hope

By Anna Tingley, Variety | October 14th, 2025

Her most recent written work, ‘Book of Hope,’ returns to bestseller lists

"The Book of Hope" by Jane Goodall - book cover. From Celadon publishers. Article emphasizing the link between Jane Goodall and hope

Jane Goodall and hope are linked, as she championed the virtue throughout her career. Despite the continuing battle over the health of the Earth, she maintained hope and encouraged it in others, as she did in “The Book of Hope.” She saw hope as a “stubborn determination” to make a better future, crucial for choosing action over despair.

Jane Goodall’s “The Book of Hope” (2021) has returned to the top of bestseller lists following the chimpanzee expert’s death.

Her final major work, “The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times,” co-written by Douglas Abrams, was originally published in 2021 and conceived as a dialogue on how to maintain faith in humanity and the planet amid escalating crises – a mix of memoir, philosophy, and moral guidance that feels especially poignant in the wake of her passing.

Structured as a dialogue between Goodall and Abrams, the book explores what she identifies as the four pillars of hope: human intellect, the resilience of nature, the power of young people, and the indomitable human spirit. Rather than offering abstract theory, it’s grounded in personal stories – from her early fieldwork with chimpanzees in Gombe to her encounters with communities fighting deforestation and climate change across the globe.

Goodall was a protégé of the noted anthropologist Louis S.B Leakey. Her 1960 discovery that chimpanzees were able to make and use tools revolutionized the field of primatology.

She was the subject of more than 40 documentaries from National Geographic, Animal Planet, Disneynature, and more. Most recently, the 2023 Imax film “Jane Goodall: Reasons for Hope” explored her habitat restoration projects, while Netflix’s “Famous Last Words” revealed its first episode, featuring an interview with Goodall, last week following her death.

“Jane Goodall was fearless in all things,” the show’s producer Brad Falchuk said in a statement. “She deeply loved humanity and the natural world. It was clear to me in our conversation that she was approaching her final adventure with the same fearlessness, hope, humor, and joy that she approached everything else in life. She was one of the world’s greatest and most beloved champions of good.”