Accessible work by an academic zoologist, covering the history of rats' relationship with humans as well as rat behaviour, psychology and social systems.
IllustrationsPrefacePART 1: Histories1 Tales of Rats2 Naming and Taming3 All Fall DownPART 2: Questions and Answers4 A Battle of Wits?5 Do Rats Think?6 Are Rats Gluttons?7 All in Their Genes?8 Rat SocietiesPART 3: The Blindness of Research9 Population Explosions10 Social Life and Death11 Nature and Human NatureGlossaryNotes on sourcesReferencesIndex
Tony Barnett has written a number of books, both academic and for the general public. He has many years of science broadcasting experience and appears regularly on the ABC Science Show. His first job was working on the London underground during the Blitz, where rat-born diseases were a major problem. After the war he worked as an adviser to the Indian government on controlling rats before becoming a professor of biology at the ANU in Canberra.
'Mr Speaker, I smell a rat; I see him forming in the air and darkening the sky; but I'll nip him in the bud.' An English Member of Parliament