How to Be Animal: A New History of What It Means to Be Human

In this fascinating new book from author Melanie Challenger, explore what it means to be a human, and more importantly, what it means to be an animal. Challenger argues that a critical aspect of the trajectory of human development was shaped by our confrontation with the fact of our animality. Even as we discovered new principles of science and made observations about the world that other animals had and could not, we struggled with our instincts and animality in such a way as to spur our desire to shape and control the world even further. Persuasively argued, and a fascinating look at the whole of human history through a new lens, How to Be Animal is a must read for the biologically and anthropologically inclined.

This combination of biology, genetics, zoology, evolutionary psychology and philosophy offers a wide-ranging take on an important question. Why do we has humans resist the idea that we are animals? As a species we pat ourselves on the back for our intelligence, but how smart are we if we don't even admit we are animals? Author Melanie Challenger tells the story of what it is to be human and the existential struggle we face from facing our own animal faces. Challenger traces the history of this attitude from the agrarian and industrial revolutions through the age of internet. How to Be Animal is a reappraisal of humanity and also a defense of what it means to be an animal.

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