Elephant Trails

Elephant Trails PDF Author: Nigel Rothfels
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421442604
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
Why have elephants—and our preconceptions about them—been central to so much of human thought? From prehistoric cave drawings in Europe and ancient rock art in Africa and India to burning pyres of confiscated tusks, our thoughts about elephants tell a story of human history. In Elephant Trails, Nigel Rothfels argues that, over millennia, we have made elephants into both monsters and miracles as ways to understand them but also as ways to understand ourselves. Drawing on a broad range of sources, including municipal documents, zoo records, museum collections, and encounters with people who have lived with elephants, Rothfels seeks out the origins of our contemporary ideas about an animal that has been central to so much of human thought. He explains how notions that have been associated with elephants for centuries—that they are exceptionally wise, deeply emotional, and have a special understanding of death; that they never forget, are beloved of the gods, and suffer unusually in captivity; and even that they are afraid of mice—all tell part of the story of these amazing beings. Exploring the history of a skull in a museum, a photograph of an elephant walking through the American South in the early twentieth century, the debate about the quality of life of a famous elephant in a zoo, and the accounts of elephant hunters, Rothfels demonstrates that elephants are not what we think they are—and they never have been. Elephant Trails is a compelling portrait of what the author terms "our elephant."

Elephant Trails

Elephant Trails PDF Author: Nigel Rothfels
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421442604
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 250

Get Book Here

Book Description
Why have elephants—and our preconceptions about them—been central to so much of human thought? From prehistoric cave drawings in Europe and ancient rock art in Africa and India to burning pyres of confiscated tusks, our thoughts about elephants tell a story of human history. In Elephant Trails, Nigel Rothfels argues that, over millennia, we have made elephants into both monsters and miracles as ways to understand them but also as ways to understand ourselves. Drawing on a broad range of sources, including municipal documents, zoo records, museum collections, and encounters with people who have lived with elephants, Rothfels seeks out the origins of our contemporary ideas about an animal that has been central to so much of human thought. He explains how notions that have been associated with elephants for centuries—that they are exceptionally wise, deeply emotional, and have a special understanding of death; that they never forget, are beloved of the gods, and suffer unusually in captivity; and even that they are afraid of mice—all tell part of the story of these amazing beings. Exploring the history of a skull in a museum, a photograph of an elephant walking through the American South in the early twentieth century, the debate about the quality of life of a famous elephant in a zoo, and the accounts of elephant hunters, Rothfels demonstrates that elephants are not what we think they are—and they never have been. Elephant Trails is a compelling portrait of what the author terms "our elephant."

On Trails

On Trails PDF Author: Robert Moor
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476739234
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
"In 2009, while thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail, Robert Moor began to wonder about the paths that lie beneath our feet: How do they form? Why do some improve over time while others fade? What makes us follow or strike off on our own? Over the course of the next seven years, Moor traveled the globe, exploring trails of all kinds, from the miniscule to the massive. He learned the tricks of master trail-builders, hunted down long-lost Cherokee trails, and traced the origins of our road networks and the Internet. In each chapter, Moor interweaves his adventures with findings from science, history, philosophy, and nature writing--combining the nomadic joys of Peter Matthiessen with the eclectic wisdom of Lewis Hyde's The Gift. Throughout, Moor reveals how this single topic--the oft-overlooked trail--sheds new light on a wealth of age-old questions: How does order emerge out of chaos? How did animals first crawl forth from the seas and spread across continents? How has humanity's relationship with nature and technology shaped the world around us? And, ultimately, how does each of us pick a path through life? With a breathtaking arc that spans from the dawn of animal life to the digital era, On Trails is a book that makes us see our world, our history, our species, and our ways of life anew"--Book jacket flap.

Elephant Gnosis

Elephant Gnosis PDF Author: David Kettle
Publisher: Kerosene Bomb Publishing
ISBN: 097199773X
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
This is the interiorized mythopoetic wet dream of Buffy Strangelove and his multifarious personae, swallowing L. Ron Hubbard and Jerry Falwell whole before breakfast and puking it out before lunch.

The Amboseli Elephants

The Amboseli Elephants PDF Author: Cynthia J. Moss
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226542238
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
Elephants have fascinated humans for millennia. Aristotle wrote of them with awe and Hannibal used them in warfare. This book is the summation of what's been learned from the Amboseli Elephant Research Project (AERP) - the longest continuously running elephant research project in the world.

African Game Trails

African Game Trails PDF Author: Theodore Roosevelt
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Africa, British East
Languages : en
Pages : 654

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Book Description
An account of Theodore Roosevelt's 1909–10 African expedition.

The Works of Theodore Roosevelt: African game trails

The Works of Theodore Roosevelt: African game trails PDF Author: Theodore Roosevelt
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description


The Presence of Elephants

The Presence of Elephants PDF Author: Paul G. Keil
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040160298
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 184

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Book Description
How to dwell in a forest alongside giants, avoid disturbing a living god, assist an animal with their manners, and help an elephant cross the road. The Presence of Elephants is an anthropological consideration of coexistence, grounded in people’s everyday interactions with Asian elephants. Drawing on two years of ethnographic fieldwork in Assam, Northeast India, this book examines human–elephant copresence and how minds, tasks, identities, and places are shared between the two species. Sharing lives and landscapes with such formidable beings is a continuously shifting and negotiated exchange inherently composed of tensions, asymmetries, and uncertainties – especially in the Anthropocene when breakdowns in communication increasingly have a violent effect. Developing a multifaceted picture of human–elephant relations in a postcolonial setting, each chapter focuses on a different dimension of encounter, where elephants adapt to human norms, people are subject to elephant projects, and novel interspecies possibilities emerge at the threshold of nature and society. Vulnerability is a common experience intensified in contemporary human–elephant relations, felt through the elephant’s power to disrupt and transform human lives, as well as the risks these endangered animals are exposed to. This book will be of interest to scholars of multispecies ethnography and human–animal relations, environmental humanities, conservation, and South Asian studies.

Tiger Trails in Southern Asia

Tiger Trails in Southern Asia PDF Author: Richard Lightburn Sutton
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Asia
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description


On the Gorilla Trail. [With Plates.]

On the Gorilla Trail. [With Plates.] PDF Author: Mary Bradley
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Africa, East
Languages : en
Pages : 592

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Book Description


Elephant Talk

Elephant Talk PDF Author: Ann Downer
Publisher: Twenty-First Century Books ™
ISBN: 1512452882
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 116

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Book Description
On a hot day in the African savannah, a group of elephants searches for food. While foraging they often lose sight of one another. Yet at the end of the day, in one coordinated movement, the elephants suddenly regroup. This coordinated movement—and others like it—has puzzled scientists and caused them to question how elephants communicate with each other. Since the 1990s, scientists have gathered significant data on elephant “talk.” Biologists have determined that elephants use a complex system of communication of at least ten distinct sounds, combined in many variations. Researchers are now asking: what do these sounds mean? As scientists study the elephant sounds that humans can hear, they are also identifying ways elephants communicate through nonverbal behaviors and making sounds too low for human ears. Scientists have realized that elephants even receive messages by using their sensitive feet to feel vibrations in the ground. All of these discoveries are helping elephant researchers better understand elephant behavior. But the elephant’s time as a wild animal is running out. Threatened by habitat loss and illegally hunted for their ivory tusks, elephants are on the brink of extinction. Will understanding elephant talk be the key to saving the species?