We have been domesticating animals for over ten thousand years. Why do we want tame wolves in our homes, subdued wild cats on our laps and snakes draped like scarves around our necks? This great conversation between the wild and the tame is human history, human psychology, human politics and human sociology. Pets feature in art, poetry and some of our most popular stories. Is it because we ourselves are wild and so we want furry, feathered and scaly wildness in our lives? But on what terms? Have we tamed the wolves, or are wolves wilding us?

Pets and their People looks at the strange rapport between humans and their pets – or pets and their humans – at each stage of our lives. It takes bearings from every era of human history, asking how the special bond between owners and their pets has evolved, and what that evolution tells us about our own changing identity. Do we look to animals as moral – or other – role models? Do pets help us to communicate? Do they teach us about life and death? Can they show us who we really are?

CHARLES FOSTER is a Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. His previous books include Being a Beast (2017), The Screaming Sky (2021) and Cry of the Wild: Eight Animals Under Siege (2023).

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