Pests
eBook - ePub

Pests

How Humans Create Animal Villains

  1. 352 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Pests

How Humans Create Animal Villains

About this book

An engrossing and revealing study of why we deem certain animals “pests” and others not—from cats to rats, elephants to pigeons—and what this tells us about our own perceptions, beliefs, and actions, as well as our place in the natural world

A squirrel in the garden. A rat in the wall. A pigeon on the street. Humans have spent so much of our history drawing a hard line between human spaces and wild places. When animals pop up where we don’t expect or want them, we respond with fear, rage, or simple annoyance. It’s no longer an animal. It’s a pest.

At the intersection of science, history, and narrative journalism, Pests is not a simple call to look closer at our urban ecosystem. It’s not a natural history of the animals we hate. Instead, this book is about us. It’s about what calling an animal a pest says about people, how we live, and what we want. It’s a story about human nature, and how we categorize the animals in our midst, including bears and coyotes, sparrows and snakes. Pet or pest? In many cases, it’s entirely a question of perspective.

Bethany Brookshire’s deeply researched and entirely entertaining book will show readers what there is to venerate in vermin, and help them appreciate how these animals have clawed their way to success as we did everything we could to ensure their failure. In the process, we will learn how the pests that annoy us tell us far more about humanity than they do about the animals themselves. 

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Yes, you can access Pests by Bethany Brookshire in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & Historical Theory & Criticism. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Dedication
  4. Contents
  5. Introduction: A Pest Is _____?
  6. Part I: Fear and Loathing
  7. Part II: A Place to Call Home
  8. Part III: In the Eye of the Beholder
  9. Part IV: The Power of Pest
  10. Part V: The Once and Future Pest
  11. Acknowledgments
  12. Notes
  13. Further Reading
  14. Index
  15. About the Author
  16. Copyright
  17. About the Publisher