Rhinoceros (Reaktion Books - Animal) | Date: 28 April 2011, 04:59
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Rhinoceros (Reaktion Books - Animal)
By Kelly Enright
* Publisher: Reaktion Books
* Number Of Pages: 224
* Publication Date: 2008-06-24
* ISBN-10 / ASIN: 1861893744
* ISBN-13 / EAN: 9781861893741
Product Description:
The rhinoceros’s horn and massive leathery frame belie its docile and solitary nature, causing the animal to be consistently perceived by humans as a monster to be feared. Kelly Enright now deftly sifts fact from fiction in Rhinoceros.
Enright chronicles the vexed interactions between humans and rhinos, from early sightings that mistook the rhinoceros for the mythical unicorn to the eighteenth-century display of the rhinoceros in Europe as a wonder of nature and its introduction to the American public in 1830. The rhinoceros has long been a prized hunting object as well, whether for its horn as a valuable ingredient in Asian medicine or as a coveted trophy by nineteenth-century big-game hunters such as Theodore Roosevelt, and the book explains how such practices have led to the rhino’s status as an endangered species. Enright also considers portrayals of the animal in film, literature, and art, all in the service of discovering whether the reputed savagery of the rhino is a reality or a legacy of its mythic past.
A wide-ranging, highly illustrated study, Rhinoceros will be essential for scholars and animal lovers alike.
Summary: Short on natural history
Rating: 3
The book is a pleasure to handle - well sewn with sturdy glossy pages, almost like a children's book, something you never see anymore. It starts out with a fascinating history of human attitudes and perceptions of the animal through the ages, but chapter after chapter continues being devoted to mankind's feelings, fears, and mythologies about rhinoceroses. In the end, there is one paragraph each devoted to a description of the different species' natural habits in the wild. Perhaps it isn't fair to criticize the book on this point because apparently rhinoceroses are elusive. Still, I kept hoping and waiting for some natural history of the beasts' habits, talents, shortcomings, food supplies, reproductive mannerisms, social behavior, nursing behavior, conflicts with other animals, etc., all of which was treated barely in passing. I wound up disappointed in not knowing as much as I had wanted to about these splendid animals. A better title for the book would have been, How People Through the Ages Have Thought About Rhinoceroses.
Summary: Was that a Unicorn or Rhinoceros?
Rating: 5
Very nicely written narrative about a species that needs protection to survive in nature. Massive animals, unlike elephants, not very useful to man as beasts of burden. You will learn that they don't eat people, how they relate to unicorns and how their horn(s) are used as medicine even today. Hope to see more from this new author, it was a pleasure to read and now I know a lot more about these rare and wonderful creatures.
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