A Communion of Subjects is the first comparative and interdisciplinary study of the conceptualization of animals in world religions. Scholars from a wide range of disciplines consider how major religious traditions have incorporated animals into their belief systems, myths, rituals, and art. Their findings offer insights into humans’ relationships with animals and a deeper understanding of the social and ecological web in which they all live. Contributors explore issues such as animal consciousness, suffering, sacrifice, and stewardship in innovative methodological ways. They also address contemporary challenges relating to law, biotechnology, social justice, and the environment. They reveal how humans either intentionally or inadvertently marginalize “others,” whether human or otherwise, reflecting on the ways in which they assign value to living beings.

This is a book for all readers who want to learn about amphibians, the animal group that includes frogs, toads, salamanders, and caecilians. It draws on many years of classroom teaching, laboratory experience, and field observation by the authors. Robert Stebbins and Nathan Cohen lead readers on a fascinating odyssey as they explore some of nature’s most interesting creatures, interspersing their own observations throughout the book. A Natural History of Amphibians can serve as a textbook for students and independent learners, as an overview of the field for professional scientists and land managers, and as an engaging introduction for general readers.

Exploring the questions of what insects are and what scientific, aesthetic, ethical, and historical relationships they have with humanity, Jean-Marc Drouin argues that insects force humans to reconsider their ideas of the animal and the social. He traces the role that insects have played in language, mythology, literature, entomology, sociobiology, and taxonomy over the centuries. Caught between the animal and plant kingdoms, insects force humans to confront and reevaluate notions of gender, family, society, struggle, the division of labor, social organization, and individual and collective intelligence. A remarkably original and thought-provoking work, A Philosophy of the Insect is an important book for animal studies, environmental ethics, and the history and philosophy of science.

A Walk Through Time is a landmark book, gorgeously illustrating the remarkable drama of the history of the universe, from the furious blast of the Big Bang to the first pulse of life on Earth, and on through the rich pageant of life’s evolution from primordial microbes to the rise of Homo sapiens. Spanning 15 billion years, the story of life’s greatest mysteries emerges here through 130 beautiful four-color illustrations and an absorbing narrative. Combining the knowledge of three expert authors, the text covers the most up-to-date findings, including new understandings about how the universe coalesced into galaxies and planets; how microscopic animals can survive in such superheated environments as deep-sea vents and inside the Earth’s core, and the possibility that water came to our planet from space in the form of millions of tiny comets. A Walk Through Time gives readers a new perspective on awe-inspiring processes that produced us and our place in the universe. The companion to a traveling exhibition developed by Hewlett Packard and the Foundation for Global Community.

In the face of the emerging consequences of anthropogenic activities in relation to the environment, Africa is today united by the consciousness that individual destinies are caught up with the health of natural systems at the national, regional and continental levels. This book of readings on African Ecological Spirituality: Perspectives in Anthroposophy and Environmentalism focuses on scholarly and Indigenous perspectives regarding the evolution of eco-spirituality in Africa. It provides answers to fundamental questions that have been looming at the horizon of thought for years on the contribution of African spirituality to ecological discourse.

An African Grey parrot, Alex had a brain the size of a shelled walnut, yet he could add, sound out words, understand concepts like bigger, smaller, more, fewer, and none, and he disproved the widely accepted idea that birds possess no potential for language or anything remotely comparable to human intelligence. Alex & Me is the story of an amazing, irascible parrot and his best friend, research scientist Irene Pepperberg, who stayed together through thick and thin for thirty years—the unforgettable story of a landmark scientific achievement and a beautiful relationship.

A moving account of raising, then freeing, an orphaned screech owl, whose lasting friendship with the author illuminates humanity’s relationship with the world.

In response to the damage caused by centuries of colonial ravaging and the current ecological, political and social crises, the leading Indigenous thinker and activist Ailton Krenak warns against the power of corporate capitalism and its destructive impact. Capitalism encroaches on every corner of the planet and orients humans toward a future of promised progress, achievement and growth, but this future doesn’t exist–they just imagine it. This orientation to the future also blinds humans to what exists around them, to the plants and animals with which they share the Earth and to the rivers that flow through their lands. Rivers are not just resources to be exploited or channels to carry away waste, but they are beings that connect humans with their past. If there is a future to imagine, it is ancestral, since it is already present in the here and now and in that which exists around humans, in the rivers and mountains and trees that are their kin. In a spoken language that has the mark of ancestral oral wisdom, Krenak offers a new perspective that challenges and disrupts some of the assumptions that underpin Western attitudes and mentalities. His work will be of great interest to anyone concerned about the climate crisis and the worsening plight of this planet.

The structures animals build provide a superb window on the workings of the animal mind. Animal Architects examines animal architecture across a range of species, from those whose blueprints are largely innate (such as spiders and their webs) to those whose challenging structures seem to require intellectual insight, planning, and even aesthetics (such as bowerbirds’ nests, or beavers’ dams). Beginning with instinct and the simple homes of solitary insects, James and Carol Gould move on to conditioning; the “cognitive map” and how it evolved; and the role of planning and insight. Finally, they reflect on what animal building reveals about the nature of human intelligence–showing why humans, unlike many animals, need to build castles in the air.

Animal studies is a growing interdisciplinary field that incorporates scholarship from public policy, sociology, religion, philosophy, and many other areas. In essence, it seeks to understand how humans study and conceive of other-than-human animals, and how these conceptions have changed over time, across cultures, and across different ways of thinking. This interdisciplinary introduction to the field foregrounds the realities of non-human animals, as well as the imaginative and ethical faculties that humans must engage to consider their intersection with living beings of other species. It also demonstrates that the breadth and depth of thinking and humility needed to grasp the human-non-human intersection has the potential to expand the dualism that currently divides the sciences and humanities. As the first holistic survey of the field, Animal Studies is essential reading for any student of human-animal relationships and for all people who care about the role non-human animals play in society.

In Animate Earth, Stephan Harding explores how Gaian science can help humans to develop a sense of connectedness with the “more-than-human” world. His work is based on a careful integration of rational scientific analysis with human intuition, sensing and feeling—a vitally important task at this time of severe ecological and climate crisis. Animate Earth argues that humans need to establish a right relationship with the planet as a living entity in which they are indissolubly embedded–and to which, in the final analysis, humans are all accountable. The book inspires the reader to connect with a profound sense of the intrinsic value of the Earth, and to discover what it means to live as harmoniously as possible within a sentient creature of planetary proportions.

Written by ecologist Stephan Harding, Animate Earth argues that humans need to establish the right relationship with the planet as a living entity in which they are indissolubly embedded—and to which they are all accountable. Harding’s work is based on careful integration of rational scientific analysis with human intuition, sensing and feeling—a vitally important task at this time of severe ecological and climate crisis. He replaces what he considers the cold, objectifying language of science with a way of speaking of the planet as a sentient, living being rather than as a dead, inert mechanism. Chemical reactions, for instance, are described using human metaphors, such as marriage, to bring personality back into the world of rocks, atmosphere, water and living things. In this sense, the book is a contemporary attempt to rediscover anima mundi (the soul of the world) through Gaian science, whilst assuming no prior knowledge of science.

How have human cultures engaged with and thought about animals, plants, rocks, clouds, and other elements in their natural surroundings? Do animals and other natural objects have a spirit or soul? What is their relationship to humans? In this new study, Graham Harvey explores current and past animistic beliefs and practices of Native Americans, Maori, Aboriginal Australians, and eco-pagans. He considers the varieties of animism found in these cultures as well as their shared desire to live respectfully within larger natural communities. Drawing on his extensive casework, Harvey also considers the linguistic, performative, ecological, and activist implications of these different animisms.

In Awe, Dacher Keltner presents a sweeping investigation and deeply personal inquiry into this elusive feeling. Revealing new re­search alongside an examination of awe across history, culture, and within his own life, Keltner shows readers how cultivating awe in their ev­eryday lives leads to an appreciation of what is most humane in their human nature. At turns radical and profound, brimming with enlightening and practical insights, Awe is a field guide for how to place this emotion as a vital force within person’s life.

David Abram’s first book, The Spell of the Sensuous, has become a classic of environmental literature. Now he returns with a startling exploration of human entanglement with the rest of nature. As the climate veers toward catastrophe, the innumerable losses cascading through the biosphere make vividly evident the need for a metamorphosis in human relations to the living land. For too long humans have ignored the wild intelligence of their bodies, taking their primary truths from technologies that hold the living world at a distance. Abram’s writing subverts this distance, drawing readers ever closer to their animal senses in order to explore, from within, the elemental kinship between the human body and the breathing Earth. The shape-shifting of ravens, the erotic nature of gravity, the eloquence of thunder, the pleasures of being edible: all have their place in this book.