Richard W. Bulliet has long been a leading figure in the study
of human-animal relations, and in his newest work, "Hunters,
Herders, and Hamburgers," he offers a sweeping and engaging
perspective on this dynamic relationship from prehistory to the
present. By considering the shifting roles of donkeys, camels,
cows, and other domesticated animals in human society, as well as
their place in the social imagination, Bulliet reveals the
different ways various cultures have reinforced, symbolized, and
rationalized their relations with animals.
Bulliet identifies and explores four stages in the history of
the human-animal relationship-separation, predomesticity,
domesticity, and postdomesticity. He begins with the question of
when and why humans began to consider themselves distinct from
other species and continues with a fresh look at how a few species
became domesticated. He demonstrates that during the domestic era
many species fell from being admired and even worshipped to being
little more than raw materials for various animal-product
industries. Throughout the work, Bulliet discusses how social and
technological developments and changing philosophical, religious,
and aesthetic viewpoints have shaped attitudes toward animals.
Our relationship to animals continues to evolve in the
twenty-first century. Bulliet writes, "We are today living through
a new watershed in human-animal relations, one that appears likely
to affect our material, social, and imaginative lives as profoundly
as did the original emergence of domestic species." The United
States, Britain, and a few other countries are leading a move from
domesticity, marked by nearly universal familiarity with domestic
species, to an era of postdomesticity, in which dependence on
animal products continues but most people have no contact with
producing animals. Elective vegetarianism and the animal-liberation
movement have combined with new attitudes toward animal science,
pets, and the presentation of animals in popular culture to impart
a distinctive moral, psychological, and spiritual tone to
postdomestic life.
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