If humans are the only creatures that know they’re unique, what should we do with that knowledge?
The answer according to this superb book is cherish, acknowledge and maintain all the differences between us and them – between humans and the many millions of different other species. Some of the weirdest of those are itemised here, in essays that start with biology and spin off most eruditely to look at facets of humanity – music, use of fire, and our general ignorance of quite how linked we are genetically to every thing else. Many of them live in isolated places – sea depths, Peruvian mountains…
But this is no polemic. Yes, it carries in its gorgeous pages eco-lessons galore, but it’s so much more – philosophical, spiritual, cultural. It combines science and literature and shows quite how brilliant mankind’s general knowledge can be – and also how little we know about our world and what we continue to do to it. In that regard it’s an essential volume, of a kind so seldom accomplished as successfully as this.
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