In the Company of Animals

In the Company of Animals
Author: James Serpell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 320
Release: 1996-08-13
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 9780521577793

What purpose, if any, do pets really serve? Are they simply an outlet for misplaced love? Or four-legged friends who help us to satisfy vital emotional needs? Whatever they are, when we elevate pets to the status of social companions, we undermine the distinction between human and non-human. In other words, pets force us to confront the moral contradictions inherent in our treatment of animals in general. Pursuing this idea to its logical conclusion, the author uncovers a fascinating and disturbing trail of myths, evasions and double standards which humans have used since earliest times to justify their subjugation of nature and other life forms. Through an exploration of the phenomenon of pet-keeping across history and between cultures, this thought-provoking study reassesses our relationships with animals and the natural world. This new edition of In the Company of Animals has been substantially revised and updated to take into account developments in research since the first edition was published in 1986.

In the Company of Animals

In the Company of Animals
Author: Pam Chamberlain
Publisher: Nimbus+ORM
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2014-10-17
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1771082259

Real-life tales that explore the complexities of human-animal relationships—from domestic pets to farm animals to wildlife. In this collection, thirty-seven writers from across Canada tell thought-provoking stories of extraordinary encounters with a variety of animals—from rats and salamanders to wolves and bears. From tributes to a favorite cat or dog to tales of a chance encounter with a moose or a cougar, these stories are sure to entertain and enlighten. The writers are people who spend time in the company of animals—pet owners, farmers, veterinarians, hunters, artists, landowners, game wardens—those who pay close attention to them and their natures, and the lessons they can teach us.

The Ultimate Book of Animals

The Ultimate Book of Animals
Author: Anne-Sophie Baumann
Publisher: Twirl
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2021-08-31
Genre: Animal behavior
ISBN:

How does a bird fly? What does a bee see? What do wolves eat? Interactive illustrations make it fun to learn about the animals all around.

The Council of Animals

The Council of Animals
Author: Nick McDonell
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
Total Pages: 128
Release: 2021-07-20
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 125079904X

From national bestselling author Nick McDonell, The Council of Animals is a captivating fable for humans of all ages—dreamers and cynics alike—who believe (if nothing else) in the power of timeless storytelling. “‘Now,’ continued the cat, ‘there is nothing more difficult than changing an animal’s mind. But I will say, in case I can change yours: humans are more useful to us outside our bellies than in.’” Perhaps. After The Calamity, the animals thought the humans had managed to do themselves in. But, it turns out, a few are cowering in makeshift villages. So the animals—among them a cat, a dog, a crow, a baboon, a horse, and a bear—have convened to debate whether to help the last human stragglers . . . or to eat them. Rest assured, there is a happy ending. Sort of. Featuring illustrations by Steven Tabbutt

Dr. Seuss's Book of Animals

Dr. Seuss's Book of Animals
Author: Dr. Seuss
Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers
Total Pages: 37
Release: 2018-01-02
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1524770558

An easy reader about animals—real and imaginary—with illustrations by Dr. Seuss! Featuring a mix of real animals and Seussian creatures, this super-simple rhymed riff about animals is both a concept book AND a funny introduction to the world of Dr. Seuss. Illustrated with art from beloved Dr. Seuss books—including One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish,Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You?, and Dr. Seuss's ABC—it teaches beginning readers to identify animals in the world around them and ones only found in classic books by Dr. Seuss! Nurture a love of reading—and of Seussian creatures—with this great new concept book for beginning readers!

A Plea for the Animals

A Plea for the Animals
Author: Matthieu Ricard
Publisher: Shambhala Publications
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2016-10-04
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 0834840545

Every cow just wants to be happy. Every chicken just wants to be free. Every bear, dog, or mouse experiences sorrow and feels pain as intensely as any of us humans do. In a compelling appeal to reason and human kindness, Matthieu Ricard here takes the arguments from his best-sellers Altruism and Happiness to their logical conclusion: that compassion toward all beings, including our fellow animals, is a moral obligation and the direction toward which any enlightened society must aspire. He chronicles the appalling sufferings of the animals we eat, wear, and use for adornment or "entertainment," and submits every traditional justification for their exploitation to scientific evidence and moral scrutiny. What arises is an unambiguous and powerful ethical imperative for treating all of the animals with whom we share this planet with respect and compassion.

The Oxford Handbook of Animal Studies

The Oxford Handbook of Animal Studies
Author: Linda Kalof
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 641
Release: 2017
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199927146

The Oxford Handbook of Animal Studies tackles the infamous "animal question" how can humans rethink and reconfigure their relationships with other animals? Over the course of five sections and thirty chapters, the contributors investigate issues and concepts central to understanding our current relationship with other animals and the potential for coexistence in an ecological community of living beings.

On Animals

On Animals
Author: Susan Orlean
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2021-10-12
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1982181559

NATIONAL BESTSELLER “Magnificent.” —The New York Times * “Beguiling, observant, and howlingly funny.” —San Francisco Chronicle * “Spectacular.” —Star Tribune (Minneapolis) * “Full of astonishments.” —The Boston Globe Susan Orlean—the beloved New Yorker staff writer hailed as “a national treasure” by The Washington Post and the author of the New York Times bestseller The Library Book—gathers a lifetime of musings, meditations, and in-depth profiles about animals. “How we interact with animals has preoccupied philosophers, poets, and naturalists for ages,” writes Susan Orlean. Since the age of six, when Orlean wrote and illustrated a book called Herbert the Near-Sighted Pigeon, she’s been drawn to stories about how we live with animals, and how they abide by us. Now, in On Animals, she examines animal-human relationships through the compelling tales she has written over the course of her celebrated career. These stories consider a range of creatures—the household pets we dote on, the animals we raise to end up as meat on our plates, the creatures who could eat us for dinner, the various tamed and untamed animals we share our planet with who are central to human life. In her own backyard, Orlean discovers the delights of keeping chickens. In a different backyard, in New Jersey, she meets a woman who has twenty-three pet tigers—something none of her neighbors knew about until one of the tigers escapes. In Iceland, the world’s most famous whale resists the efforts to set him free; in Morocco, the world’s hardest-working donkeys find respite at a special clinic. We meet a show dog and a lost dog and a pigeon who knows exactly how to get home. Equal parts delightful and profound, enriched by Orlean’s stylish prose and precise research, these stories celebrate the meaningful cross-species connections that grace our collective existence.

Thinking with Animals

Thinking with Animals
Author: Lorraine Daston
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2005-02-02
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 0231503776

Is anthropomorphism a scientific sin? Scientists and animal researchers routinely warn against "animal stories," and contrast rigorous explanations and observation to facile and even fanciful projections about animals. Yet many of us, scientists and researchers included, continue to see animals as humans and humans as animals. As this innovative new collection demonstrates, humans use animals to transcend the confines of self and species; they also enlist them to symbolize, dramatize, and illuminate aspects of humans' experience and fantasy. Humans merge with animals in stories, films, philosophical speculations, and scientific treatises. In their performance with humans on many stages and in different ways, animals move us to think. From Victorian vivisectionists to elephant conservation, from ancient Indian mythology to pet ownership in the contemporary United States, our understanding of both animals and what it means to be human has been shaped by anthropomorphic thinking. The contributors to Thinking with Animals explore the how and why of anthropomorphism, drawing attention to its rich and varied uses. Prominent scholars in the fields of anthropology, ethology, history, and philosophy, as well as filmmakers and photographers, take a closer look at how deeply and broadly ways of imagining animals have transformed humans and animals alike. Essays in the book investigate the changing patterns of anthropomorphism across different time periods and settings, as well as their transformative effects, both figuratively and literally, upon animals, humans, and their interactions. Examining how anthropomorphic thinking "works" in a range of different contexts, contributors reveal the ways in which anthropomorphism turns out to be remarkably useful: it can promote good health and spirits, enlist support in political causes, sell products across boundaries of culture of and nationality, crystallize and strengthen social values, and hold up a philosophical mirror to the human predicament.