Looking at Animals in Human History - Hardcover

Kalof, Linda

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1861893345 ISBN 13: 9781861893345

Publisher: Reaktion Books, 2007

Synopsis

From the first cave paintings to Britta Jaschinski's provocative animal photography, it seems we have been describing and portraying animals, in some form or another, for as long as we have been human. This book provides a broad historical overview of our representations of animals, from prehistory to postmodernity, and how those representations have altered with changing social conditions. Taking in a wide range of visual and textual materials, Linda Kalof unearths many surprising and revealing examples of our depictions of animals. She also examines animals in a broad sweep of literature, narrative and criticism: from Pliny the Elder's Natural History to Donna Haraway's writings on animal human machine interaction; and from accounts of the Black Plague and histories of the domestic animal and zoos, to the ways that animal stereotypes have been applied to people to highlight hierarchies of gender, race and class. Well-researched and scholarly, yet very accessible, this book is a significant contribution to the human animal story. Featuring more than 60 images, "Looking at Animals in Human History" brings together a wealth of information that will appeal to the wide audience interested in animals, as well as to specialists in many disciplines.

About this title

Review:

"Linda Kalof's "Looking at Animals in Human History" is a vivid and encyclopedic survey of encounters between human and nonhuman animals across Western culture. Clear, readable, beautifully illustrated and always informative, this book presents (just as the title promises) a detailed account of how people have looked at animals, with insights into how animals figure in art, in battle, in entertainment, in law, in public health, in agriculture, in rituals, and much much more. This is a valuable contribution to the growing field of human-animal studies."--Randy Malamud, Georgia State University, and author of "Poetic Animals and Animal Souls"
"Linda Kalof's "Looking at Animals in Human History" is a vivid and encyclopedic survey of encounters between human and nonhuman animals across Western culture. Clear, readable, beautifully illustrated and always informative, this book presents (just as the title promises) a detailed account of how people have looked at animals, with insights into how animals figure in art, in battle, in entertainment, in law, in public health, in agriculture, in rituals, and much much more. This is a valuable contribution to the growing field of human-animal studies."--Randy Malamud, Georgia State University, and author of "Poetic Animals and Animal Souls"
"Linda Kalof7;s "Looking at Animals in Human History" is a vivid and encyclopedic survey of encounters between human and nonhuman animals across Western culture. Clear, readable, beautifully illustrated and always informative, this book presents (just as the title promises) a detailed account of how people have looked at animals, with insights into how animals figure in art, in battle, in entertainment, in law, in public health, in agriculture, in rituals, and much much more. This is a valuable contribution to the growing field of human-animal studies."--Randy Malamud, Georgia State University, and author of "Poetic Animals and Animal Souls"
"Linda Kalof's Looking at Animals in Human History is a vivid and encyclopedic survey of encounters between human and nonhuman animals across Western culture. Clear, readable, beautifully illustrated and always informative, this book presents (just as the title promises) a detailed account of how people have looked at animals, with insights into how animals figure in art, in battle, in entertainment, in law, in public health, in agriculture, in rituals, and much much more. This is a valuable contribution to the growing field of human-animal studies."--Randy Malamud, Georgia State University, and author of Poetic Animals and Animal Souls

"Linda Kalof''s account allows neither denial nor escape, while nourishing the commitment to somehow recraft actual inter-species relationships into more livable patterns."--Professor Donna Haraway, professor of the History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies, University of California at Santa Cruz, and author of "Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness"
"Linda Kalof's "Looking at Animals in Human History" is a vivid and encyclopedic survey of encounters between human and nonhuman animals across Western culture. Clear, readable, beautifully illustrated and always informative, this book presents (just as the title promises) a detailed account of how people have looked at animals, with insights into how animals figure in art, in battle, in entertainment, in law, in public health, in agriculture, in rituals, and much much more. This is a valuable contribution to the growing field of human-animal studies."

--Randy Malamud, Georgia State University, and author of Poetic Animals and Animal (03/01/2007)
"Linda Kalof s "Looking at Animals in Human History" is a vivid and encyclopedic survey of encounters between human and nonhuman animals across Western culture. Clear, readable, beautifully illustrated and always informative, this book presents (just as the title promises) a detailed account of how people have looked at animals, with insights into how animals figure in art, in battle, in entertainment, in law, in public health, in agriculture, in rituals, and much much more. This is a valuable contribution to the growing field of human-animal studies."
--Randy Malamud, Georgia State University, and author of Poetic Animals and Animal (03/01/2007)"

"Linda Kalof's account allows neither denial nor escape, while nourishing the commitment to somehow recraft actual inter-species relationships into more livable patterns."--Professor Donna Haraway, professor of the History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies, University of California at Santa Cruz, and author of Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness (08/31/2007)
"Linda Kalof s Looking at Animals in Human History is a vivid and encyclopedic survey of encounters between human and nonhuman animals across Western culture. Clear, readable, beautifully illustrated and always informative, this book presents (just as the title promises) a detailed account of how people have looked at animals, with insights into how animals figure in art, in battle, in entertainment, in law, in public health, in agriculture, in rituals, and much much more. This is a valuable contribution to the growing field of human-animal studies."
--Randy Malamud, Georgia State University, and author of Poetic Animals and Animal Souls (03/01/2007)"

"Linda Kalof devastates the idea that animals do not matter, that they are irrelevant to human history. Her fascinating book should provoke much discussion."- Jim Mason, co-author of The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter--Jim Mason (08/31/2007)"

Synopsis:

From the first humans' cave paintings to Damien Hirst's provocative animal installations: it seems we have been describing and portraying animals, in some form or another, for as long as we have been human. "Looking at Animals in Human History" provides a broad historical overview of our representations of animals, from prehistory to postmodernity, and how those representations have altered with changing social conditions. Taking in a very wide range of material, from Palaeolithic cave-paintings, to Medieval rituals and processions, to dead-animal portraiture in the seventeenth century, to the display of animals in trophy photography, to animals in postmodern art, Linda Kalof unearths many surprising and revealing examples of our depictions of animals. She also examines animals in a broad sweep of literature, narrative and criticism: from Pliny the Elder's Natural history to Donna Haraway's writings on animal/human/machine interaction; and, from accounts of the Black Plague and histories of the domestic animal and zoos, to the ways that animal stereotypes have been applied to people to highlight hierarchies of gender, race and class.

Well-researched and scholarly, yet readable and accessible, this book is a significant contribution to the human-animal story. Featuring more than 80 illuminating images, and numerous extracts from historical and literary sources, the book brings together a wealth of information that will appeal to the wide audience interested in animals, as well as to specialists in many disciplines.

About this edition

• Publisher: Reaktion Books
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 1861893345
• ISBN 13: 9781861893345
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224