Jonathan Balcombe
Not Just for Christmas
The Animals Among Us: The New Science of Anthrozoology
By John Bradshaw
Allen Lane 357pp £20 order from our bookshop
Earlier this year I acquired a stuffed toy, a fluffy foot-long sea otter that I named Athena. I usually fall asleep with her tucked under my chin. Living alone, and with a travel schedule that keeps me from getting a real companion animal, I welcome the ‘company’ and ‘affection’ provided by this surrogate pet. Although I know Athena is inanimate and has no feelings, I believe I benefit from having her around.
Is this eccentric behaviour – anthropomorphism run amok? If so, I’m not alone: witness the popularity of teddy bears and Tamagotchis. But caring about a pseudo-pet is a widespread extension of the emotional bonds humans have with domesticated animals, especially dogs and cats. The study of such bonds falls within the realm of anthrozoology, a young field concerned with the personal relationships that people have with animals and, to a lesser degree, that animals have with us. John Bradshaw, who directs the Anthrozoology Institute at the University of Bristol, is a father of the field, having coined the term ‘anthrozoology’ with colleagues on the day he turned forty.
While the academic discipline might be young, the phenomenon it studies is ancient. Our ability to understand and feel affection for animals probably emerged as our brains evolved into their current form, some fifty to thirty thousand years ago. Bradshaw (with the help of marvellous illustrations by Alan Peters) is
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
On the night of 5th July 1809, a group of soldiers kidnapped Pope Pius VII on the orders of Napoleon Bonaparte. Munro Price looks at what happened next.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/bonaparte-meets-his-match
'She lived in a damp basement with her mother and sister, smoking roll-ups and talking to her parrot.'
Joanna Kavenna traces the life of the 'almost-forgotten poet' Charlotte Mew.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/she-hated-poetry-readings
'If, as James Wolcott once claimed, Roth was a miracle of modern medicine, he was also one of therapy’s notable failures.'
@leorobsonwriter on Philip Roth, that 'walking, wanking paradox'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/the-great-american-novelist