Hunters, Herders, and Hamburgers: The Past and Future of Human-Animal Relationships / Edition 1

by Richard Bulliet

Overview

Richard W. Bulliet has long been a leading figure in the study of human-animal relations, and in his newest work, Hunters, Herders, and Hamburgers, he offers a sweeping and engaging perspective on this dynamic relationship from prehistory to the present. By considering the shifting roles of donkeys, camels, cows, and other domesticated animals in human society, as well as their place in the social imagination, Bulliet reveals the different ways various cultures have reinforced, symbolized, and rationalized their relations with animals.

Bulliet identifies and explores four stages in the history of the human-animal relationship-separation, predomesticity, domesticity, and postdomesticity. He begins with the question of when and why humans began to consider themselves distinct from other species and continues with a fresh look at how a few species became domesticated. He demonstrates that during the domestic era many species fell from being admired and even worshipped to being little more than raw materials for various animal-product industries. Throughout the work, Bulliet discusses how social and technological developments and changing philosophical, religious, and aesthetic viewpoints have shaped attitudes toward animals.

Our relationship to animals continues to evolve in the twenty-first century. Bulliet writes, "We are today living through a new watershed in human-animal relations, one that appears likely to affect our material, social, and imaginative lives as profoundly as did the original emergence of domestic species." The United States, Britain, and a few other countries are leading a move from domesticity, marked by nearly universal familiarity with domestic species, to an era of postdomesticity, in which dependence on animal products continues but most people have no contact with producing animals. Elective vegetarianism and the animal-liberation movement have combined with new attitudes toward animal science, pets, and the presentation of animals in popular culture to impart a distinctive moral, psychological, and spiritual tone to postdomestic life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231130776
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	07/03/2007
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Richard W. Bulliet is professor of history at Columbia University. He is the author of The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization; Islam: The View from the Edge; and The Camel and The Wheel and the editor of The Columbia History of the Twentieth Century.

Read an Excerpt

We are today living through a new watershed in human-animal relations that is affecting our material, social, and imaginative lives.

Table of Contents

1 - Postdomesticity: Our Lives with Animals
2 - The Stages of Human-Animal Relations
3 - Separation: The Human-Animal Divide
4 - Predomesticity
5 - Where the Tame Things Are
6 - Domestication and Usefulness
7 - From Mighty Hunter to Yajamana
8 - Early Domesticity: My Ass and Yours
9 - Late Domestic Divergences
10 - Toward Postdomesticity
11 - The Future of Human-Animal RelationsNotes
Suggested Reading

What People are Saying About This

William Leach

Why is American culture so saturated with images of sex, gore, and violence? If you think you know the answer, think again: Richard Bulliet has an explanation that will astonish and enthrall you. Informed by an impressive knowledge of many cultures, imaginatively daring, and original, his book carries the reader through an account of the human relation to animals over thousands of years of history. A remarkable, eye-opening achievement.

— William Leach, Columbia University

Gregory Pflugfelder

A work of great erudition and stunning scope, Bulliet's study takes readers on a journey through time and space they will not forget. You may never look at your cat (or for that matter, your hamburger) in the same way again.

— Gregory Pflugfelder, Columbia University, coeditor of JAPANimals: History and Culture in Japan's Animal Life

Mary C. Pearl

Hunters, Herders, and Hamburgers is a brilliant exposition ofhuman-animal relationships through time and across different cultures. It isnecessary reading for anyone who seeks understanding of the origins of thecurrent, confusing array of attitudes and ethical approaches to animals, frompragmatic uses to animal liberation movements. Bulliet has identified the emergence of a major shift in human identity relative to other creatures and employs his broad knowledge of the past to speculate far into the future of the human-non-human relationship.

— Mary C. Pearl, president, Wildlife Trust

Richard Foltz

A highly original, thought-provoking, irreverent, and entertaining perspective on the past, present, and future of human relations with other animal species. No other writer has gone so far in contemplating the widespread effects on human societies of our 'postdomestic' separation from the living sources of the animal products we continue to use.

— Richard Foltz, Concordia University,author of Animals in Islamic Tradition and Muslim Cultures

Editorial Reviews

Bulliet's writing is irreverent seasoned with humor, and sprinkled with pop references that draw in nonscholarly readers.

Utne - Scott Carlson

The book is notable for many stimulating and original ideas.

Science Books & Films - Linda Wiener

This provocative thesis is arresting in its originality.

Glynis Ridley

You may never look at a pet, or a burger, in quite the same way again.

Ecologist - Mark Thompson

This is an original, well-written and fascinating work, a riveting read.

Anthropological Forum - Barbara Noske

This book is a welcome addition to the literature... We need more such works.

— Edmund Russell

Technology and Culture

This is an original, well-written and fascinating work, a riveting read.

— Barbara Noske

Anthropological Forum

The book is notable for many stimulating and original ideas.

— Linda Wiener

Science Books & Films

You may never look at a pet, or a burger, in quite the same way again.

— Mark Thompson

Ecologist

This provocative thesis is arresting in its originality.

— Glynis Ridley

Washington Post

Bulliet's writing is irreverent seasoned with humor, and sprinkled with pop references that draw in nonscholarly readers.

— Scott Carlson

Utne

Bulliet has an impressive knowledge of archaeozoology and the history of human relationships with animals.

— Juliet Clutton-Brock

Times Literary Supplement

Columbia University historian Bulliet (The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization) admits he is not "a scientific researcher in the field of animal studies," but his book presents a provocative look at human-animal relations that offers a heady but highly readable mix of anthropology, archeology, zoology, environmentalism and philosophy. His main argument is that we live in an era of "postdomesticity" in which people live far away, "both physically and psychologically," from the animals whose food and hides they rely on. The bulk of the book is a look at various stages of human-animal relationships from antiquity to today, with remarkable explorations of related issues, such as the real-and nonnutritional-reason for human consumption of milk, and the way the industrialization of animal exploitation has caused a "spiritual and imaginative impoverishment of our outlook on the animal world." But what will surely cause the biggest controversy is Bulliet's fascinating argument that an "increasing fascination with fantasies of sex and blood" among post-WWII Americans is a subliminal reaction to the removal of animals other than pets-along with animal slaughter and animal sex-from their childhood experiences. (Oct.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

A precisely researched, logically presented, and candidly intriguing apologia for humankind's inconsistent relationship with animals.

Booklist

Bulliet has an impressive knowledge of archaeozoology and the history of human relationships with animals.

Times Literary Supplement - Juliet Clutton-Brock

This book is a welcome addition to the literature... We need more such works.

Technology and Culture - Edmund Russell

A precisely researched, logically presented, and candidly intriguing apologia for humankind's inconsistent relationship with animals.

Booklist