As Julie Urbanik vividly illustrates, non-human animals are
central to our daily human lives. We eat them, wear them, live with them, work
them, experiment on them, try to save them, spoil them, abuse them, fight them,
hunt them, buy and sell them, love them, and hate them. Placing Animals is the
first book to bring together the historical development of the field of animal
geography with a comprehensive survey of how geographers study animals today.
Urbanik provides readers with a thorough understanding of the relationship
between animal geography and the larger animal studies project, an appreciation
of the many geographies of human-animal interactions around the world, and
insight into how animal geography is both challenging and contributing to the
major fields of human and nature-society geography. Through the theme of the
role of place in shaping where and why human-animal interactions occur, the
chapters in turn explore the history of animal geography and our distinctive
relationships in the home, on farms, in the context of labor, in the wider
culture, and in the wild.
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (23 July 2012) £17.95
