Animate - by Michael Bond (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

A mind-expanding deep dive into how animals have shaped us, from the Paleolithic Period to the present day.

In Animate, acclaimed science writer Michael Bond explores how animals have profoundly influenced our minds and cultures. Drawing on cutting-edge insights from psychology, anthropology, literature and neuroscience, Bond traces the varied ways their lives have affected ours, from our hunter-gatherer ancestors whose brains were rewired by the prey they hunted and the predators they feared, to the medieval and Enlightenment thinkers who used animals to promote notions of human supremacy.

Scientists today are challenging the assumption that we are separate from and superior to animals, showing that they too possess intelligence, empathy, creativity and even the ability to use tools. If everything that supposedly makes us human is shared with other creatures, where does that leave us? And if we are not as exceptional as we thought, how should we be treating the animals we live alongside?

A fascinating exploration of what it means to be both human and animal, Animate shows that to better understand ourselves, we must pay more attention to the other beings with whom we share our world.

Review Quotes

"A searing indictment of the human animal's inhumane treatment of non-human animals."--Kirkus Reviews

"In his robust raspberry to human exceptionalism, Michael Bond shows that the lengths to which people have gone to justify our exalted estate only point up our close relationship with the animals with whom we share this planet."--Henry Gee, author of The Decline adn Fall of the Human Empire

"In this beautifully written, wide-ranging, and impeccably researched book, Michael Bond carefully traces how we, humans, arrived at where we are today, disconnected from wild animals and their homes and wrongly thinking of ourselves as superior to other animals and separate from and above them. Bond aptly and correctly concludes, without other animals, 'we can hardly be human.' Animate will make you rethink who they (other animals) truly are and who we truly are, and we can only hope it will result in people changing their speciesist abusive ways of interacting with our animal kin with whom we actually share a large number of traits."--Marc Bekoff, author of The Emotional Lives of Animals

"It's hard to know where we end and our dog begins. The same is true, if we could only see it, for humans and non-humans generally. By letting us eavesdrop on the conversation between us and the wild, Bond, in this thrilling, effortlessly readable book, helps us to see--and so to know our own shape and nature. Essential, transformative stuff."--Charles Foster, author of The Edges of the World

Early praise for Michael Bond's Animate:

"In this beautiful biography of humans' evolution with animals Michael Bond explores how we can resolve our recent messy divorce from nature and 'reanimate' ourselves, returning to a place where we can learn, judge and find ourselves through the way we relate to the animal world. Full of wonders and insights, awash with compassion and self-reflection, Animate is an astonishing adventure into our own psychology expressed through our relationship with animals."--Isabella Tree, author of Wilding

Praise for Michael Bond

"A fascinating, incisive account of how the human brain evolved to keep us orientated. Beautifully written and researched."-- "Isabella Tree, author of Wilding"

"Fascinating. Bond offers stories of phenomenal feats of navigation. Ultimately, 'we are spatial beings' and Wayfinding skilfully and at times movingly makes the case for how deeply that is true."-- "The Sunday Times"

"In this fascinating book about our gift for what Michael Bond calls wayfinding, he makes a compelling case that our ancient abilities to get from A to B aren't just a matter of geography."
-- "The New Statesman"

"One of the most fascinating books I have read for a long while, not least because of how it opens up so many other subjects."
-- "The Scotsman"

About the Author

Michael Bond, the author of the acclaimed Wayfinding: The Art and Science of How We Find and Lose Our Way, is a writer specializing in human behaviour and a former editor and reporter at New Scientist. He won the 2015 British Psychological Society Prize for The Power of Others and is currently teaching writing as a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Oxford Brookes University.