First published in 1978 by University of Georgia Press, this work foreshadows the author's 1996 work, The Others: How Animals Made Us Human . Its central thesis is that animals profoundly shape human intelligence, and by increasingly isolating ourselves from them, we jeopardize the processes of cognitive and psychological development that are essential to human flourishing. Shepard is widely regarded as an elder of the environmental movement, whose radical and visionary ideas shaped much of our current thinking about human nature. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.
In a world increasingly dominated by human beings, the survival of other species becomes more and more questionable. In this brilliant book, Paul Shepard offers a provocative alternative to an "us or them" mentality, proposing that other species are integral to humanity's evolution and exist at the core of our imagination. This trait, he argues, compels us to think of animals in order to be human. Without other living species by which to measure ourselves, Shepard warns, we would be less mature, care less for and be more careless of all life, including our own kind.
Lisainfo e-raamatute kohta