Animal Cities

Reviews / Votes

'Animal Cities provides a valuable introduction to the growing field of animal history. Its nine essays explore a variety of issues relating to animals in an urban context, connected their presence or exclusion to the changing culture and fabric of the city. All of the essays are worth reading, but those of Atkins, constituting half of those in the volume, are especially penetrating. I strongly recommend the book to urban and environmental historians.' Joel Tarr, Carnegie Mellon University, USA 'Animal Cities offers an important contribution to a neglected field of study, opening up an array of questions that deserve further attention. It positions animals not as peripheral participants of the city, but as central to historical stages of urbanisation. Most importantly, the history of our changing relationships with productive animals raises questions about how we define the good city today.' LSE Review of Books '... this volume has much to recommend it. It provides a wealth of data into the role and presence of animals in nineteenth-century British, French, and Australian cities, and offers insight into how and why animal populations decreased. It therefore makes an important contribution to urban geography and urban environmental history.' H-Urban/H-Net 'Animal Cities provides a useful extension of geographical scholarship on animals in the urban context. This book is a welcome addition to geography's many branches, not only historical, animal, and urban, but also the geography of political economy and political ecology.' Journal of Historical Geography 'The authors' detailed historical analyses also raise important questions as to how and where animals should coexist with people in the city of today and the future. These questions become ever more salient as the world's cities continue to grow.' Environmental History 'One of the most commendable aspects of Animal Cities is its minimal use of academic jargon ...it will appeal primarily to urban and envir