Stowaway
The Disreputable Exploits of the Rat – A NEW SCIENTIST NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR
-
- 16,99 €
-
- 16,99 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
A NEW SCIENTIST NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR
A cultural and social history of the rat, examining how one creature achieved total world domination and has inspired such love and loathing.
Rats are creatures which inspire fear and fascination in equal measure. Their lives are more closely entwined with humans than any other animal, but they remain the most misunderstood of all species.
No animal has sacrificed more in the pursuit of human health but also been so resolutely blamed for spreading plague and pestilence. No animal has been so determinedly targeted by humans, and still managed to survive and thrive in our midst. No animal is so often derided as being vicious and cunning, but possesses such a rich inner life.
In Stowaway, Joe Shute, explores our complex and often contradictory relationship with the rat. He travels the world from sub-Saharan Africa to the Rocky Mountains and visits some of the most rodent-infested cities on earth to unpick the myths we tell ourselves about rats and investigate the unexplored secrets of their own extraordinary lives.
He examines the way in which rats have shaped human history and meets cutting-edge researchers harnessing the power of rat intelligence to achieve incredible results. He explores the hidden world they inhabit beneath our feet as well as their role in natural ecosystems. And through his own pet rats, he discovers the close emotional bonds they form with humans when given the chance.
Ultimately, this is a book which questions what the lives of rats reveal to us about our own, and whether there might be a better way to live alongside our ancient enemies in the modern age?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this entrancing report, Daily Telegraph columnist Shute (Forecast) considers humanity's complex relationship with rats. In Paris, Shute reports on a public health project mapping the city's rodent population, which found "the distribution of rats is... very patchy and tightly associated with human activity," with few living in parks because of the presence of such predators as herons and foxes. Rats often serve as scapegoats for human failings, Shute contends, suggesting that Alberta, Canada's pride over having successfully eliminated the rodents distracts from the ways in which the province's oilfields and syringe-littered parks sustain the "environmental destruction... and municipal decay" that killing rats was supposed to solve. Elsewhere, Shute discusses how Britain's National Fancy Rat Society seeks to improve the rodent's reputation by hosting Westminster-esque rat shows, and how a Tanzania-based charity has successfully employed rats to sniff out land mines and identify tuberculosis in saliva samples. The trivia surprises (rat incisors grow continuously, so the animals have to constantly gnaw on things or risk their teeth fatally extending upward into their skull), and Shute emphasizes rats' unheralded capacity for empathy and loyalty in an oddly moving account of how one of his pet rats brought scraps of food to her ailing companion and laid "immobilised by grief" for days after the other rat's death. This will change how readers see the much-maligned animals.
