Vicious: Wolves and Men in America (The Lamar Series in Western History) - Softcover

Coleman, Jon T.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0300119720 ISBN 13: 9780300119725

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2006

Synopsis

A provocative history of wolves in America and of the humans who first destroyed them and now offer them protection

Over a continent and three centuries, American livestock owners destroyed wolves to protect the beasts that supplied them with food, clothing, mobility, and wealth. The brutality of the campaign soon exceeded wolves’ misdeeds. Wolves menaced property, not people, but storytellers often depicted the animals as ravenous threats to human safety. Subjects of nightmares and legends, wolves fell prey not only to Americans’ thirst for land and resources but also to their deeper anxieties about the untamed frontier.

Now Americans study and protect wolves and jail hunters who shoot them without authorization. Wolves have become the poster beasts of the great American wilderness, and the federal government has paid millions of dollars to reintroduce them to scenic habitats like Yellowstone National Park.

Why did Americans hate wolves for centuries? And, given the ferocity of this loathing, why are Americans now so protective of the animals? In this ambitious history of wolves in America—and of the humans who have hated and then loved them—Jon Coleman investigates a fraught relationship between two species and uncovers striking similarities, deadly differences, and, all too frequently, tragic misunderstanding.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

"This is a bold, smart, and original book, written with verve and imagination. Far more than a history of wolves in America, it is a meditation on the meanings of time, history, and culture, and an inquiry into the nature of cruelty and hatred."--Andrew Cayton, Distinguished Professor of History, Miami University

"A fascinating book which draws on historical, biological and cultural insights in a penetrating analysis of how Americans have interacted with a major predator. Coleman’s approach allows us to understand fully why we eliminated wolves from the United States, and why recent debates over wolf reintroduction have been so heated."--Robert Keiter, author of Keeping Faith with Nature and The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (also Wallace Stegner Professor of Law and director of the Wallace Stegner Center for Land, Resources and the Environment at the University of Utah)

"A fabulous book. Coleman is a witty, incisive writer who has unearthed a new history for American’s hate-love relationship with wolves. This is a work of exceptional ambition at the cutting edge of environmental history."--Louis Warren, author of Hunter’s Game, and W. Turrentine Jackson Professor of Western U.S. History, Univ. of California, Davis

"This is a remarkably well-written, provocative and insightful work of history on a timely and important topic."--Alan Taylor, University of California at Davis

About the Author:

Jon T. Coleman teaches history at the University of Notre Dame.

About this edition

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0300119720
• ISBN 13: 9780300119725
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 270