Why Did the Chicken Cross the World: The Story of the Bird that Powers Civilisations - Hardcover

Andrew Lawler

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0715649973 ISBN 13: 9780715649978

Publisher: Duckworth, 2015

Synopsis

From ancient empires to modern economics, journalist Andrew Lawler takes us on an adventure telling us the story of the animal most crucial to the spread of civilization across the globe-the chicken. Queen Victoria was obsessed with it. Socrates' last words were about it. Charles Darwin and Louis Pasteur made their scientific breakthroughs using it. Catholic popes, African shamans, Chinese philosophers, and Muslim mystics praised it. Hailed as a messenger of the gods, powerful sex symbol, gambling aid, all-purpose medicine, handy research tool, the humble chicken has been also cast the epitome of evil, and the star of the world's most famous joke. Beginning with the recent discovery, that the chicken's unlikely ancestor is T. Rex, this book tracks the chicken from its original domestication in the jungles of Southeast Asia some 10,000 years ago to today's Western societies, where it became the most engineered of animals, to the uncertain future of what is now humanity's single most important source of protein. In a masterful combination of historical sleuthing and journalistic exploration on four continents, Lawler reframes the way we feel and think about all domesticated animals, even nature itself.

About this title

Review:

'Setting the record straight, Lawler's latest tome recasts the chicken as a feathered Swiss Army knife - a bird that has fueled cultural, economic and scientific growth for several thousand years.' --The Guardian

'Lawler's book goes a long way toward restoring chickens to their respected position within human history and our modern world. Both chickens and people will benefit as a result.' --Science Magazine

'Science journalist Adrian Lawler explores the chicken's multipronged place in human civilization in his rip-roaring, erudite Why did the Chicken Cross the World?' --Nature Magazine

About the Author:

Andrew Lawler is the author of more than a thousand newspaper and magazine articles on subjects ranging from asteroids to zebrafish. He is a contributing writer for Science magazine and has written for National Geographic, Smithsonian, Discover, The New York Times, and several European newspapers. Visit him at andrewlawler.com.

About this edition

• Publisher: Duckworth
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0715649973
• ISBN 13: 9780715649978
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336