Humans and Other Animals

This book by Samantha Hurn introduces readers to an area of growing anthropological significance - how humans relate to the animal world and their own place in it through a myriad practical engagements and ideational entanglements. She does this with reference to debates about food, science, conservation, sexuality, and virtually every other subject that has a bearing on our humanity. We are provided with a highly useful overview of the subject, connecting our mundane experiences of living amongst animals, to philosophical notions of 'human exceptionalism' and the heady methodological possibility of 'multi-species' ethnography. Hurn brings coherence to a large and diverse literature, in a clear and accessible way, that will make this book a refreshingly novel text for beginning students, as well as stimulating a wider interest in an intelligent discussion of human-animals relations. -- Roy Ellen, Professor of Anthropology and Human Ecology, University of Kent Canterbury