The conventional history of animals could be more accurately described as the history of human ideas about animals. Only in the last few decades have scholars from a wide variety of disciplines attempted to document the lives of historical animals in ways that recognize their agency as sentient beings with complex intelligence. This collection advances the field further, inviting us to examine our recorded history through an animal-centric lens to discover how animals have altered the cour...

“Compulsively readable—a masterpiece, maybe the masterpiece of science journalism.” —Bill McKibben, AudubonA brilliant, stirring work, breathtaking in its scope and far-reaching in its message, The Song of the Dodo is a crucial book in precarious times. Through personal observation, scientific theory, and history, David Quammen examines the mysteries of evolution and extinction and radically alters our understanding of the natural world a...

"An eloquent polemic against human abuse of animals, culminating with a devastating description of factory farming." —Peter Singer, The New York Review of BooksIn Dominion, we witness the annual convention of Safari Club International, an organization whose wealthier members will pay up to $20,000 to hunt an elephant, a lion or another animal, either abroad or in American "safari ranches," where the animals are fenced in pens. We...

J. M. Adovasio has spent the last thirty years at the center of one of our most fiery scientific debates: Who were the first humans in the Americas, and how and when did they get there?At its heart, The First Americans is the story of the revolution in thinking that Adovasio and his fellow archaeologists have brought about, and the firestorm it has ignited. As he writes, “The work of lifetimes has been put at risk, reputations have been damaged, an astounding amount of sil...

“Surprising. Impressive. Cannibalism restores my faith in humanity.” —Sy Montgomery, The New York Times Book ReviewFor centuries scientists have written off cannibalism as a bizarre phenomenon with little biological significance. Its presence in nature was dismissed as a desperate response to starvation or other life-threatening circumstances, and few spent time studying it. A taboo subject in our culture, the behavior was portray...

Wild elephants walking along a trail stop and spontaneously try toprotect and assist a weak and dying fellow elephant. Laboratory rats,finding other rats caged nearby in distressing circumstances, proceed torescue them. A chimpanzee in a zoo loses his own life trying to save anunrelated infant who has fallen into a watery moat.Theexamples above and many others, argues Dale Peterson, show that ourfellow creatures have powerful impulses towar...

'Kindness and co-operation have played a crucial role in raising humans to the top of the evolutionary tree ... We have thrived on the milk of human kindness.' ObserverBY THE AUTHOR OF ARE WE SMART ENOUGH TO KNOW HOW SMART ANIMALS ARE?'There is a widely-held assumption that humans are hard-wired for relentless and ruthless competition ... Frans de Waal sees nature differently - as a biological legacy in which empathy, not mere self-interes...

T****he monumental statues of Easter Island, both so magisterial and so forlorn, gazing out in their imposing rows over the island’s barren landscape, have been the source of great mystery ever since the island was first discovered by Europeans on Easter Sunday 1722. How could the ancient people who inhabited this tiny speck of land, the most remote in the vast expanse of the Pacific islands, have built such monumental works? No such astonishing numbers of massive statues ...

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson’s groundbreaking bestseller, When Elephants Weep, was the first book since Darwin’s time to explore emotions in the animal kingdom, particularly from animals in the wild. Now, he focuses exclusively on the contained world of the farm animal, revealing startling, irrefutable evidence that barnyard creatures have feelings too, even consciousness.Weaving history, literature, anecdotes, scientific studies, and Masson’s own vivid experiences observing ...

For years, predators like snow leopards and white-tipped sharks have been disappearing from the top of the food chain, largely as a result of human action. Science journalist Will Stolzenburg reveals why and how their absence upsets the delicate balance of the world's environment.

In this inspirational call to action, Marc Bekoff, the world’s leading expert on animal emotions, gently shows that improving our treatment of animals is a matter of rethinking our many daily decisions and “expanding our compassion footprint.” He demonstrates that animals experience a rich range of emotions, including empathy and compassion, and that they clearly know right from wrong. Driven by moral imperatives and pressing environmental realities, Bekoff offers six compelling reasons fo...

Two leaders in animal welfare share their conservation plan to protect animals and educate people on saving both animals and the environment."The Ten Commandments for the future of advanced life on our planet." —Huston Smith, author of The World's ReligionsWorld-renowned behavioral scientists Jane Goodall and Marc Bekoff argue passionately and persuasively that if we put these ten trusts to work in our lives, the ...