Synopses & Reviews
"A brilliant, thought-provoking book." — Matt Haig, New York Times bestselling author of The Midnight Library
A wide-ranging take on why humans have a troubled relationship with being an animal, and why we need a better one
Human are the most inquisitive, emotional, imaginative, aggressive, and baffling animals on the planet. But we are also an animal that does not think it is an animal. How well do we really know ourselves?
How to Be Animal tells a remarkable story of what it means to be human and argues that at the heart of our existence is a profound struggle with being animal. We possess a psychology that seeks separation between humanity and the rest of nature, and we have invented grand ideologies to magnify this. As well as piecing together the mystery of how this mindset evolved, Challenger's book examines the wide-reaching ways in which it affects our lives, from our politics to the way we distance ourselves from other species. We travel from the origin of homo sapiens through the agrarian and industrial revolutions, the age of the internet, and on to the futures of AI and human-machine interface. Challenger examines how technology influences our sense of our own animal nature and our relationship with other species with whom we share this fragile planet.
That we are separated from our own animality is a delusion, according to Challenger. Blending nature writing, history, and moral philosophy, How to Be Animal is both a fascinating reappraisal of what it means to be human, and a robust defense of what it means to be an animal.
Review
"[A] winning rumination... Challenger convincingly demonstrates that 'the human form of consciousness and its capacity to deliver meaning' doesn't negate the natural world's 'spectacle of richness.' Impassioned and intelligent, this is a treatise with the possibility to change minds." Publishers Weekly, starred review
Review
"A searching examination of our intellectual divorce from the natural world... [Challenger] invites us to accept our animal nature and the responsibility toward the world that comes with it. A welcome, well-considered contribution to ecological thought." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"[A] fascinating and cutting-edge meditation on humanity... humbling [and] timely... Every chapter is more riveting than the last, a truly remarkable read." Booklist
Review
"Erudite, lyrical, delightfully troubling, and full of unexpected convergences. A wonderful exploration of the tensions that beset the human animal trying to find our way. I was entranced by this beautiful weave of history, biology, and philosophy." David George Haskell, author of The Forest Unseen and The Songs of Trees
Review
"Throughout our vexed shared history, animals have suffered from our insistence on comparing them to us, as if we were entirely separate organisms. Melanie Challenger's extraordinary, profound book turns the situation on its head. Perhaps only recently we how come to realise that this presumptive, if not arrogant hierarchy does not exist. Only by seeing ourselves as animals are we going to survive. How to be Animal is an utterly challenging, wholly essential book: it shows us how to be human." Philip Hoare, author of The Whale
Review
"What an interesting book! The recognition that we are animals should come less as a slap in the face than as a welcome reminder of the great resources that can come from paying attention to the ways we and our various cousins handle our journeys on this difficult but beautiful planet." Bill McKibben, author of Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?
About the Author
Melanie Challenger works as a researcher on the history of humanity and the natural world, and on environmental philosophy. She is the author of On Extinction How We Became Estranged from Nature. She received a Darwin Now Award for her research among Canadian Inuit and the Arts Council International Fellowship with the British Antarctic Survey for her work on the history of whaling. She lives with her family in England. Challenger is the host of the "Enter the Psychosphere" podcast, where she dives into the world of the diverse intelligences that exist on the planet in conversations with guests like Peter Godfrey Smith and Daniel Dennett.