Between Light and Storm
How We Live with Other Species
-
- $18.99
-
- $18.99
Publisher Description
A landmark examination of the fraught relationship between humans and animals, taking the reader from Genesis to climate change.
Beginning with the very origins of life on Earth, Woolfson considers prehistoric human-animal interaction and traces the millennia-long evolution of conceptions of the soul and conscience in relation to the animal kingdom, and the consequences of our belief in human superiority. She explores our representation of animals in art, our consumption of them for food, our experiments on them for science, and our willingness to slaughter them for sport and fashion, as well as examining concepts of love and ownership.
Drawing on philosophy and theology, art and history, as well as her own experience of living with animals and coming to know, love, and respect them as individuals, Woolfson examines some of the most complex ethical issues surrounding our treatment of animals and argues passionately and persuasively for a more humble, more humane, relationship with the creatures who share our world.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Woolfson (Field Notes from a Hidden City) examines humanity's relationship with animals in this bracing investigation. In tracing "the development of the philosophical and religious ideas that have formed our views and how we've seen, described and portrayed other species," she considers animal breeding and their use as food, which are "closely related to the way we look at our own species and the extent to which we give ourselves the privileges apparently bestowed by history and by God," as well as their role as subjects of experiments. Elsewhere, Woolfson examines how "tradition" is used "to justify some of the most outrageous, discredited and damaging human behaviour," specifically the "persecution, the killing and infliction of suffering" on large numbers of animals. (Her chapter on the cruelties in the fur trade is especially harrowing.) Throughout, the descriptions can be brutal, but they are balanced with passages of beauty: "Red kites hunt above me... their feathers changed in an instant to flashes of copper taffeta, light as fragments of fine silk blown by the wind." It adds up to a fascinating look at how and why humans "consider ourselves superior" to other beings who live on the planet. With gorgeous writing and well-considered insight, this is a must for nature-minded readers.
