Animals in the History of the United States

FAIN: FZ-231572-16

Thomas George Andrews
Regents of the University of Colorado, Boulder (Boulder, CO 80303-1058)

The research and writing of a book-length study of the human-animal relationship within the context of changes in broader American culture and life.

An Animals’ History of the United States, under contract with Harvard University Press, presents a path-breaking view of human-animal relationships in U.S. history. Using incisive research, accessible prose, and gripping storytelling, it asks the following questions: How have animals shaped our nation? Where did our contemporary ideas about animals come from? What can we learn about the origins and evolution of the seemingly contradictory practices through which we interact with the creatures we categorize as pets, livestock, wildlife, laboratory subjects, spectacles, and so forth? This project seeks to illuminate these questions by examining the past six centuries of human-animal relationships in what is now the U.S. The resulting work of public scholarship will offer an animals’-eye view of U. S. history since 1400. In the process, this project will make an important contribution to ongoing debates over how we think about and act toward non-human beings.