Meet the Neighbors
Animal Minds and Life in a More-than-Human World
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- $22.99
Publisher Description
“A true landmark in animal literature. Mandatory reading.” —Ben Goldfarb, author of Crossings and Eager
What does the science of animal intelligence mean for how we understand and live with the wild creatures around us?
Honeybees deliberate democratically. Rats reflect on the past. Snakes have friends. In recent decades, our understanding of animal cognition has exploded, making it indisputably clear that the cities and landscapes around us are filled with thinking, feeling individuals besides ourselves. But the way we relate to wild animals has yet to catch up. In Meet the Neighbors, acclaimed science journalist Brandon Keim asks: what would it mean to take the minds of other animals seriously?
In this wide-ranging, wonder-filled exploration of animals’ inner lives, Keim takes us into courtrooms and wildlife hospitals, under backyard decks and into deserts, to meet anew the wild creatures who populate our communities and the philosophers, rogue pest controllers, ecologists, wildlife doctors, and others who are reimagining our relationships to them. If bats trade favors and groups of swans vote to take off by honking, should we then see them as fellow persons—even members of society? When we come to understand the depths of their pleasures and pains, the richness of their family lives and their histories, what do we owe so-called pests and predators, or animals who are sick or injured? Can thinking of nonhumans as our neighbors help chart a course to a kinder, gentler planet? As Keim suggests, the answers to these questions are central to how we understand not only the rest of the living world, but ourselves.
A beguiling invitation to discover an expanded sense of community and kinship beyond our own species, Meet the Neighbors opens our eyes to the world of vibrant intelligence just outside our doors.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Science journalist Keim (The Eye of the Sandpiper) investigates what animals think and feel in this bracing inquiry. Pushing back against the long-held scientific consensus that animals lack consciousness, Keim notes studies indicating that many birds model their nests on others they have seen and practice making them sturdier over time, behavior that suggests conscious decision-making about what materials to use and how to incorporate them. Insights into the emotional lives of animals surprise, as when Keim discusses research showing that garter snakes form "friendships" and that rats are "especially generous" when sharing food with anxious companions. Such revelations should compel humans to reconsider their relationship with the natural world, he argues, discussing how a recent campaign to gain legal personhood for a Bronx Zoo Asian elephant envisions what a more considerate relationship might look like. Research on honeybees that deliberate as a hive and Italian tree frogs that can count looks beyond the usual subjects of animal intelligence studies, and Keim provides fascinating insight into ways humanity might take animal rights more seriously (political parties dedicated to animal rights in Canada and the Netherlands aim to provide creatures with parliamentary representation). The result is a potent complement to Martha C. Nussbaum's Justice for Animals. Illus.
