A newly published photography book features the best of the birds and animals, as well as brilliant landscapes, from five of Africa's most breathtaking countries - Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Kenya.

Michael Poliza’s Africa began life as a gigantic five kilogram coffee table book. Eighty-five of the best images from that book are included in this new, more portable edition, The Essential Africa.

Below (click the link under multimedia), you can find a sample gallery of a dozen dramatically varied images from Botswana.

The photographer Michael Poliza is a well known adventurer in his native Germany and beyond. Having made his fortune in IT, his three-year voyage around the world in his ship, the Starship, documented the state of the planet at the end of the last millennium. The 1000-day journey was broadcast daily on the internet to millions of viewers.

Poliza embraced and was a pioneer of digital photography. He now spends most of his time in Cape Town and continues to scour Africa and other remote wildernesses with his camera.

The essential Africa is published by TeNeues priced £20 (ISBN 978-3-8327-9197-1)

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