PDF An Elephant for Aristotle Download
- Author: Lyon Sprague De Camp
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- Languages : en
- Pages : 368
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Elephants have captivated the human imagination for as long as they have roamed the earth, appearing in writings and cultures from thousands of years ago and still much discussed today. In Thirty-Three Ways of Looking at an Elephant, veteran scientific writer Dale Peterson has collected thirty-three essential writings about elephants from across history, with geographical perspectives ranging from Africa and Southeast Asia to Europe and the United States. An introductory headnote for each selection provides additional context and insights from Peterson’s substantial knowledge of elephants and natural history. The first section of the anthology, “Cultural and Classical Elephants,” explores the earliest mentions of elephants in African mythology, Hindu theology, and Aristotle and other ancient Greek texts. “Colonial and Industrial Elephants” finds elephants in the crosshairs of colonial exploitation in accounts pulled from memoirs commoditizing African elephants as a source of ivory, novel targets for bloodsport, and occasional export for circuses and zoos. “Working and Performing Elephants” gives firsthand accounts of the often cruel training methods and treatment inflicted on elephants to achieve submission and obedience. As elephants became an object of scientific curiosity in the mid-twentieth century, wildlife biologists explored elephant families and kinship, behaviors around sex and love, language and self-awareness, and enhanced communications with sound and smell. The pieces featured in “Scientific and Social Elephants” give readers a glimpse into major discoveries in elephant behaviors. “Endangered Elephants” points to the future of the elephant, whose numbers continue to be ravaged by ivory poachers. Peterson concludes with a section on fictional and literary elephants and ends on a hopeful note with the 1967 essay “Dear Elephant, Sir,” which argues for the moral imperative to save elephants as an act of redemption for their systematic abuse and mistreatment at human hands. Essential to understanding the history and experience of this beloved and misunderstood creature, Thirty-Three Ways of Looking at an Elephant is a must for any elephant lover or armchair environmentalist.
Aristotle characterized the elephant as “the beast which passeth all others in wit and mind” and the animal has long figured in cultural artifacts, even on continents it has never inhabited. Now Elephant provides an engaging look at the elephant’s long legacy. The image of the elephant can be found throughout world cultures as a symbol of intelligence, strength, and loyalty. Wylie draws on a rich array of examples to document that symbolic power, ranging from symbols of the Hindu god of wisdom, Ganesh, to the beloved children’s works Dumbo and Babar the Elephant. Turning to the elephant’s biological history, Wylie describes the three remaining species—the African Bush Elephant, African Forest Elephant, and the Asian Elephant—and the controversial efforts for elephant conservation. With ivory poaching and human encroachment into the animal’s natural habitats, Wylie argues that we face a uniquely poignant conservation crisis in which elephants and humans both unsustainably consume limited natural resources. A compelling new entry in the Animal series, Elephant will be necessary for every animal lover’s bookshelf.
A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year The Seleucid Empire (311–64 BCE) was unlike anything the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern worlds had seen. Stretching from present-day Bulgaria to Tajikistan—the bulk of Alexander the Great’s Asian conquests—the kingdom encompassed a territory of remarkable ethnic, religious, and linguistic diversity; yet it did not include Macedonia, the ancestral homeland of the dynasty. The Land of the Elephant Kings investigates how the Seleucid kings, ruling over lands to which they had no historic claim, attempted to transform this territory into a coherent and meaningful space. “This engaging book appeals to the specialist and non-specialist alike. Kosmin has successfully brought together a number of disparate fields in a new and creative way that will cause a reevaluation of how the Seleucids have traditionally been studied.” —Jeffrey D. Lerner, American Historical Review “It is a useful and bright introduction to Seleucid ideology, history, and position in the ancient world.” —Jan P. Stronk, American Journal of Archaeology
"Frank Holt probably knows more than anyone alive about the mysterious Greek kingdoms in Bactria and on the frontiers of India that were one of the odder legacies of Alexander's Eastern conquests. The literary evidence is sparse, the coins remain ambiguous, the topography defeats all but the toughest. Holt's forays into this world are those of a clever and persistent detective: he loves cracking problems, and the tougher they are, the better. This time—very properly beginning by invoking the name of Sherlock Holmes—he has given us what Conan Doyle would probably have called 'The Adventure of the Elephant Medallions.’ Debate has raged over the scene these portray ever since the first was discovered. A cavalryman with a lance confronts an opponent on an elephant. Who are they? What is the occasion? Guesses have ranged from Alexander to the Greco-Bactrian monarch Eucratides, from Porus at the Jhelum to Darius at Gaugamela. Using his numismatic and historical skills like a Holmesian magnifying-glass, Holt takes us through the theories, deftly explodes the fallacies, and comes up with a (for me) entirely cogent and satisfying solution. He has also, somewhere along the way, acquired a really marvelous prose style. Not only is the problem in itself a page-turner; Holt also throws in, by way of introduction, the best short impressionistic account of Alexander's career I have ever read. This is high scholarship at its most exciting."—Peter Green, author of Alexander of Macedon, 356-323 B. C.: A Historical Biography "[This book] brings to a wider audience one of the few contemporary pieces of evidence for the image and ideology of Alexander the Great. While relatively well known to experts in the field, the 'elephant medallions' of the title are far less well understood, and have thus played a smaller part, in popular accounts of Alexander than they probably should. Holt's book offers a well thought out introduction first to Alexander and the Alexander story, second to the entrance of the 'medallions' into modern scholarship, and third to the medallions themselves."—Andrew Meadows, Curator of Greek Coins, British Museum
This book provides a detailed analysis of Aristotle’s Parts of Animals. It presents the wealth of information provided in the biological works of Aristotle and revisits the detailed natural history observations that inform, and in many ways penetrate, the philosophical argument. It raises the question of how easy it is to clearly distinguish between what some might describe as “merely” biological and the philosophical. It explores the notion and consequences of describing the activity in which Aristotle is engaged as philosophical biology. The book examines such questions as: do readers of Aristotle have in mind organisms like Ascidians or Holothurians when trying to understand Aristotle’s argument regarding plant-like animals? Do they need the phenomena in front of them to understand the terms of the philosophical argument in a richer way? The discussion of plant-like animals is important in Aristotle because of the question about the continuum between plant and animal life. Where does Aristotle draw the line? Plant-like animals bring this question into focus and demonstrate the indeterminacy of any potential solution to the division. This analysis of Parts of Animals shows that the study of the nature of the organic world was Aristotle’s way into such ontological problems as the relationship between matter and form, or form and function, or the heterogeneity of the many different kinds of being.
Elephants have fascinated humans for millennia. Aristotle wrote of them with awe and Hannibal used them in warfare. This book is the summation of what's been learned from the Amboseli Elephant Research Project (AERP) - the longest continuously running elephant research project in the world.