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How to Be Animal

A New History of What It Means to Be Human

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How to Be Animal

Written by: Melanie Challenger
Narrated by: Melanie Challenger
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About this listen

 What makes us human, and why are we so sure we're different from other animals?

Humans are the most inquisitive, emotional, imaginative, aggressive, and baffling animals on the planet. But how well do we really know ourselves? How to Be Animal rewrites the remarkable human story and argues that at the heart of our psychology is a profound struggle with being animal.

Most of our effects on the planet are the consequences of technological improvements and advances in our understanding of natural mechanisms. But why did this cognitive and technological edge come about in the first place and what kind of being has it made us? In How to Be Animal, Challenger brilliantly argues that this dizzying trajectory is the result of a singular characteristic of our species: the struggle with being an animal.

Using a combination of memoir, historical texts, interweaving interviews and cultural and environmental history, How to Be Animal is lively and thought-provoking, bursting with ideas. This is a book for anyone who has ever contemplated what humans are and what makes our species so simultaneously brilliant and awful. Even more so, it is a book that asks tantalizing philosophical questions, such as whether and how human life matters.

How to Be Animal is a tough-minded but ultimately sympathetic portrait of humanity. It exposes human beings as extraordinary animals defined by a profound struggle. In the third millennium, the way humans respond to being an animal among animals is the greatest and most inspiring challenge we face. Anthropology Biological Sciences Philosophy Science Social Sciences Thought-Provoking
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Ms. Challenger scrutinizes under considered assumptions about what human beings are individually and collectively and how such possibilities can inform our thoughts and actions. Well written and performed, the narrative is engaging and worth reflecting on.

Engaging Existential Perspective

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The narrator was excellent, and the book was phenomenal. Definitely a must read- now for a relisten....

A must read

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It was very boring to listen to and just modern liberal philosophy would not recommend

Terrible and boring

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