Hunters, Herders, and Hamburgers

265 Pages·2005·2.234 MB·English

by  Richard W. Bulliet

“Necessary reading
for anyone who seeks to understand the origins of the current,
The Past and Future of
confusing array of attitudes and ethical approaches to animals, from pragmatic uses to
animal liberation movements. Richard W. Bulliet has identified the emergence of a major Human -Animal Relationships
shift in human identity relative to other creatures and employs his broad knowledge of
the past to speculate far into the future of the human-nonhuman relationship.”
—Mary C. Pearl, president, Wildlife Trust
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Richard W. Bulliet engagingly recounts the dynamic relationship u
between humans and animals
from prehistory to the present. Bulliet
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explores four stages in the history of the human-animal relationship—separation,
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predomesticity, domesticity, and postdomesticity. He begins with the question of
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when and why humans began to consider themselves distinct from other species Hunters,
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and concludes with the use of species as raw materials for various animal-product
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industries. Bulliet discusses the impact of social and technological developments and
changing philosophical, religious, and aesthetic viewpoints and closes with a probing ,

look at our current era of postdomesticity, in which many people remain dependent H
on animal products, though they have no involvement with producing animals. By
considering the shifting roles of domesticated animals in human society, as well as e Herders,
their place in the social imagination, Bulliet reveals the different ways various cultures r
have reinforced, symbolized, and rationalized their relations with animals. d
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“A provocative look at human-animal relations r
that offers a heady but
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highly readable mix of anthropology . . . environmentalism and philosophy.”
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—Publishers Weekly
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“Arresting in its originality.”—Washington Post
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“You may never look at a pet, or a burger, in quite the same way H
again.”—Ecologist
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“A precisely researched, logically presented, and candidly intriguing
apologia for humankind’s inconsistent relationship with animals.”—Booklist b
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“A work of great erudition and stunning scope.” r
—Gregory Pflugfelder,
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Columbia University
and
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RICHARD W. BULLIET is professor of history at Columbia University. He is the author of
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The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization; Islam: The View from the Edge; and The Camel and
The Wheel, and editor of The Columbia History of the Twentieth Century.
Hamburgers
Bulliet
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS / NEW YORK
www.cup.columbia.edu Richard W. Bulliet
Cover image: Steven R. Noble, © 2005 Stockart.com Columbia
Printed in the U.S.A.
Hunters, Herders, and Hamburgers
Hunters, Herders,
and Hamburgers
The Past and Future of
Human-Animal Relationships
Richard W. Bulliet
Columbia University Press New York
000i-x 6/21/05 1:22 PM Page iv
Columbia / Bulliet / 181430 Colu
Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
Copyright © 2005 Columbia University Press
All rights reserved
Library of Congress
Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bulliet, Richard W.
Hunters, herders and hamburgers : the past and future of human-animal
relationships /
Richard W. Bulliet
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0–231–13076–7 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 0–231–50396–2 (e-book)
1. Human-animal relationships. I. Title.
QL85.B85 2005
179(cid:1).3—dc22
2005041381
I
Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and
durable acid-free paper.
Printed in the United States of America
c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Animals Are Passing from Our Lives
It’s wonderful how I jog
on four honed-down ivory toes
my massive buttocks slipping
like oiled parts with each light step.
I’m to market. I can smell
the sour, grooved block, I can smell
the blade that opens the hole
and the pudgy white fingers
that shake out the intestines
like a hankie. In my dreams
the snouts drool on the marble,
suffering children, suffering flies,
suffering the consumers
who won’t meet their steady eyes
for fear they would see. The boy
who drives me along believes
that any moment I’ll fall
on my side and drum my toes
like a typewriter or squeal
and shit like a new housewife
discovering television,
or that I’ll turn like a beast
cleverly to hook his teeth
with my teeth. No. Not this pig.
—Philip Levine

Contents
1.Postdomesticity: Our Lives with Animals 1
2.The Stages of Human-Animal Relations 36
3.Separation: The Human-Animal Divide 47
4.Predomesticity 71
5.Where the Tame Things Are 80
6.Domestication and Usefulness 101
7.From Mighty Hunter to Yajamana 121
8.Early Domesticity: My Ass and Yours 143
9.Late Domestic Divergences 174
10.Toward Postdomesticity 189
11. The Future of Human-Animal Relations 205
Notes 225
Suggested Reading 239
Index 245

Hunters, Herders, and Hamburgers