Synopses & Reviews
Does living with a pet really make people happier and healthier? What can we learn from biomedical research with mice? Who enjoys a better quality of life—the chicken on a dinner plate or a rooster who dies in a Saturday night cockfight? Why is it wrong to eat the family dog? Drawing on over two decades of research in the emerging field of anthrozoology—the science of human-animal relations—Hal Herzog offers surprising answers to these and other questions related to the moral conundrums we face day in and day out regarding the creatures with whom we share our world.
Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat is a highly entertaining and illuminating journey through the full spectrum of human-animal relations, based on Herzog's groundbreaking research on animal rights activists, cockfighters, professional dog show handlers, veterinary students, and biomedical researchers. Blending anthropology, history, brain science, behavioral economics, evolutionary psychology, and philosophy, Herzog carefully crafts a seamless narrative enriched with real-life anecdotes, scientific research, and his own sense of moral ambivalence.
Alternately poignant, challenging, and laugh-out-loud funny, Herzog's enlightening and provocative book will forever change the way we look at our relationships with other creatures and, ultimately, how we see ourselves.
Review
"Insightful, compassionate and humorous." ---Kirkus
Review
"Mel Foster adeptly translates Herzog's whimsical tone, complete with wondrous and gee-whiz reactions." ---AudioFile
Synopsis
Combining the boundless intellect of Malcolm Gladwell with the irreverent humor of Mary Roach and the paradigm-shifting analysis of Jared Diamond, a leading scientist offers an unprecedented look inside our complex and often paradoxical relationships with animals.
About the Author
Hal Herzog is recognized as one of the world's leading experts on human-animal relations. His research has been published in numerous prestigious academic journals, including Science, the Proceedings of the Royal Society, the American Psychologist, the American Scholar, Journal of Social Issues, and the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, and he has been featured in Newsweek, USA Today, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, Scientific American, New Scientist, Slate, CNN, National Public Radio's Morning Edition, MSNBC, and others. Hal is a professor of psychology at Western Carolina University and lives in the Great Smoky Mountains near Asheville, North Carolina, with his wife and their cat, Tilly. Mel Foster has narrated over 150 audiobooks and has won several awards. Twice an Audie finalist for 1864: Lincoln at the Gates of History by Charles Bracelen Flood and Finding God in Unexpected Places by Philip Yancey, he won for the latter title. He has also won several AudioFile Earphones Awards. Best known for mysteries, Mel has also narrated classic authors such as Thoreau, Nabokov, and Whitman.