Choice Outstanding Academic Title, 2008 The Renaissance was an extraordinary period of change in the West, fuelled by changing cultural formations, shifting empires, the growth in exploration, and developments in science and technology. A Cultural History of Animals in the Renaissance presents a broad overview of the changing role of animals in the economy, culture and thinking of the period. Covering the period 1400 to 1600, the volume explores a wide range of topics: the symbolic role of birds in early modern writing; hunting rites and animal rights; the domestication of animals; the popularity of performing animals; the development of illustrated works of natural history; changing philosophical views of animal nature; and artistic practice in the visual representation of animals. As with all the volumes in the illustrated Cultural History of Animals, this volume presents an overview of the period and continues with essays on the position of animals in contemporary Symbolism, Hunting, Domestication, Sports and Entertainment, Science, Philosophy, and Art. Volume 3 in the Cultural History of Animals edited by Linda Kalof and Brigitte Resl

In Environmental Degradation in Jacobean Drama, Bruce Boehrer provides the first general history of the Shakespearean stage to focus primarily on ecological issues. Early modern English drama was conditioned by the environmental events of the cities and landscapes within which it developed. Boehrer introduces Jacobean London as the first modern European metropolis in an England beset by problems of overpopulation; depletion of resources and species; land, water and air pollution; disease and other health-related issues; and associated changes in social behavior and cultural output. In six chapters he discusses the work of the most productive and influential playwrights of the day: Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton, Fletcher, Dekker and Heywood, exploring the strategies by which they made sense of radical ecological change in their drama. In the process, Boehrer sketches out these playwrights' differing responses to environmental issues and traces their legacy for later literary formulations of green consciousness.

In Environmental Degradation in Jacobean Drama, Bruce Boehrer provides the first general history of the Shakespearean stage to focus primarily on ecological issues. Early modern English drama was conditioned by the environmental events of the cities and landscapes within which it developed. Boehrer introduces Jacobean London as the first modern European metropolis in an England beset by problems of overpopulation; depletion of resources and species; land, water and air pollution; disease and other health-related issues; and associated changes in social behavior and cultural output. In six chapters he discusses the work of the most productive and influential playwrights of the day: Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton, Fletcher, Dekker and Heywood, exploring the strategies by which they made sense of radical ecological change in their drama. In the process, Boehrer sketches out these playwrights' differing responses to environmental issues and traces their legacy for later literary formulations of green consciousness.

Animals, Animality, and Literature offers readers a one-volume survey of the field of literary animal studies in both its theoretical and applied dimensions. Focusing on English literary history, with scrupulous attention to the interplay between English and foreign influences, this collection gathers together the work of nineteen internationally noted specialists in this growing discipline. Offering discussion of English literary works from Beowulf to Virginia Woolf and beyond, this book explores the ways human/animal difference has been historically activated within the literary context: in devotional works, in philosophical and zoological treatises, in plays and poems and novels, and more recently within emerging narrative genres such as cinema and animation. With an introductory overview of the historical development of animal studies and afterword looking to the field's future possibilities, Animals, Animality, and Literature provides a wide-ranging survey of where this discipline currently stands.

Choice Outstanding Academic Title, 2008. The Renaissance was an extraordinary period of change in the West, fuelled by changing cultural formations, shifting empires, the growth in exploration, and developments in science and technology." A Cultural History of Animals in the Renaissance" presents a broad overview of the changing role of animals in the economy, culture and thinking of the period. Covering the period 1400 to 1600, the volume explores a wide range of topics, from the symbolic role of birds in early modern writing to the development of illustrated works of natural history. As with all the volumes in the illustrated "Cultural History of Animals," this volume presents an overview of the period and continues with essays on the position of animals in contemporary Symbolism, Hunting, Domestication, Sports and Entertainment, Science, Philosophy, and Art. Volume 3 in the Cultural History of Animals edited by Linda Kalof and Brigitte Resl.