Marion Copeland

Love this animal series by Reaktion. They explore different animals not simply by providing biological facts, but also by looking at their place in human art,culture,literature and folklore. The cockroach looms large in the human imagination and I learned a lot about it here. I did not know of its position as a sort of trickster symbol for slaves in the us and for downtrodden peoples elsewhere.
I think the author was at their best when writing about areas outside her area of expertise. The word chthonic shows up about 15 or twenty times. It’s a perfectly good word to use when talking about cockroaches, but a bit overused here, perhaps.longer section on the cockroach as eco feminist hero was not my favorite, but , all in all , a really excellent read and a marvelously illustrated book as well.… (mehr)