In a world increasingly dominated by human beings, the survival of other species becomes more and more questionable. Paul Shepard offers a provocative alternative to an `us or them' mentality, proposing that other species are integral to humanity's evolution and exist at the core of our imagination. This trait, he argues, compels us to think of animals in order to be human. Without other living species by which to measure ourselves, Shepard warns, we would be less mature, care less for and be more careless of all life, including our own kind.
`Paul Shepard [is] an exceptionally clear thinker who is also a lucid and exhilarating writer...His work is valuable but very urgent, shining in the sun like the tip of the vast iceberg of knowledge and reflection that supports it.' Peter Matthiessen.