Description
The Cat’s Meow: How Cats Evolved from the Savanna to Your Sofa by Jonathan B. Losos (Hardcover)
“Animals have shaped our minds, our lives, our land, and our civilization. Humanity would not have gotten very far without them–making use of their labor for transportation, agriculture, and pollination; their protection from predators; and their bodies for food and to make clothing, music, and art. And over the last two centuries, humans have made unprecedented advances in science, technology, behavior, and beliefs. Yet how is it that we continue to destroy the animal world and lump its magnificence under the sterile concept of biodiversity? In Beastly, author Keggie Carew seeks to re-enchant readers with the wild world, reframing our understanding of what it is like to be an animal and what our role is as humans. She throws readers headlong into the mind-blowing, heart-thumping, glittering pageant of life, and goes in search of our most revealing encounters with the animal world throughout the centuries. How did we domesticate animals and why did we choose sheep, goats, cows, pigs, horses, and chickens? What does it mean when a gorilla tells a joke or a fish thinks? Why does a wren sing? Beastly is a gorgeously written, deeply researched, and intensely felt journey into the splendor and genius of animals and the long, complicated story of our interactions with them as humans”
Published by Viking on May 2, 2023
Jonathan B. Losos is an evolutionary biologist at Washington University and the founding director of the Living Earth Collaborative, a unique biodiversity center and partnership between Washington University, the Saint Louis Zoo and the Missouri Botanical Garden. He was previously a professor of biology at Harvard and a curator at the university’s Museum of Comparative Zoology. He has won awards from the National Academy of Sciences, the Society for the Study of Evolution, and the American Society of Naturalists.
Reviews
“[An] engaging and wide-ranging narrative… The Cat’s Meow is a readable and informed exploration of the wildcat that lurks within Fluffy.” —The Washington Post
“Cats are amazing. They fascinate and bewilder us….[the] cat stories detailed here will only heighten the reader’s amazment. And Losos has done cats at least as proud as we imagine they pride themselves.” –Science
“A wide-ranging guide to the biology of cats, from their evolutionary origins and partial domestication to their behaviour and genetics…Losos is an engaging and often funny guide who explains the science clearly and with nuance.” –New Scientist
