Traces the literary history of the elephant, and its role in South Africa's cultural imaginaryElephants are in dire straits – again. They were virtually extirpated from much of Africa by European hunters in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but their numbers resurged for a while in the heyday of late-colonial conservation efforts in the twentieth. Now, according to one estimate, an elephant is being killed every 15 minutes. This is at the same time that the ...

From the croc that terrorized Captain Hook in Peter Pan to the leviathans depicted in films like Lake Placid and Dinocroc, innumerable songs, stories and legends have characterized crocodilians as pitiless predators with insatiable appetites. Yet although we commonly associate crocodiles, alligators and gharials with ferocity and deceit, they have also often been respected and revered in human history. Crocodile tracks 23 crocodilian species from India a...

Aristotle characterized the elephant as ‘the beast which passeth all others in wit and mind’, and the animal has long figured in cultural artefacts, even on continents it has never inhabited. The elephant’s countless manifestations in human history have made it one of the most charismatic animals, and Elephant provides a richly illustrated, engaging look at that legacy.The image of the elephant can be found throughout world religions and cultures as a symbol of intelligenc...

The idea that the period of social turbulence in the nineteenth century was a consequence of the emergence of the powerful Zulu kingdom under Shaka has been written about extensively as a central episode of southern African history.Considerable dynamic debate has focused on the idea that this period – the ‘mfecane’- left much of the interior depopulated, thereby justifying white occupation. One view is that ‘the time of troubles’ owed more to the Delagoa Bay Slave trade and the dema...

Bioregionalism is an innovative way of thinking about place and planet from an ecological perspective. Although bioregional ideas occur regularly in ecocritical writing, until now no systematic effort has been made to outline the principles of bioregional literary criticism and to use it as a way to read, write, understand, and teach literature.The twenty-four original essays here are written by an outstanding selection of international scholars. The range of bioregions covered is ...

This is a collaboration beyond your wildest imagination! Jorma Taccone, from the hit comedy trio The Lonely Island, has paired up with New York Times–bestselling, Caldecott Medal–winning illustrator Dan Santat to create a picture book about time, space, and giant-robot-squids.BEWARE!This is a tale of great caution, terror, and destruction . . .of bath time, and bedtime, and the battle in between.This is the story of Little Fox and o...