Hunters, Herders, and Hamburgers: The Past and Future of Human-Animal Relationships

Four reasons occur to me for suggesting Professor Bulliet's book for the seniors on your gift list: 1) You will find a rich vocabulary for crossword puzzle solvers. 2) Witty writing with twists and poetic prose. 3) History, real and inferred, as told by a guy who has studied history for over fifty years and recalls what he reads. He also integrates what he has studied, one event with another across time and space. Hence: Remote Associations and clever speculation. 4) References to other literature abound which will enhance your own reading list as well as that of your favorite senior citizen. Example: A Wild Sheep Chase: A Novel by Haruki Murakama. So buy this book now, Gentle Reader, and you'll have time to read it yourself before you gift wrap it.

I have had the good fortune to take Richard Bulliet's class at Columbia University on the past, present and future of human-animal relations. Suffice it to say that Bulliet is the truest of academic renaissance individuals - I have taken classes of his on medieval Iranian history and "America and the Muslim World," and found each more entertaining than the next. Bulliet has broken new ground here and provided us with a text that is accessible far and wide, a book that on its surface may appear to appeal only to a niche of Peter Singer-ites and, perhaps, that professor's intellectual sparring partners, but in fact offers lessons and eye-opening narratives on topics many of us have never stopped to consider. "Hunters, Herders and Hamburgers" is the perfect book for anyone who is intellectually curious, and I heartily recommend it, especially to those who rarely stop to consider our relations with the "lesser species."