{"title":"Harriet Ritvo","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"noble-cows-and-hybrid-zebras-book-harriet-ritvo-9780813930602","title":"Noble Cows and Hybrid Zebras","description":"Over the past two decades, Harriet Ritvo has established herself as a leading scholar in animal studies and one of those most responsible for establishing this field of study as a crucial part of environmental and social history. Her two well-known books, The Platypus and the Mermaid and The Animal Estate, did much to introduce and illuminate the importance of nonhuman animals to the study of human culture. Hunting and husbandry, as well as petkeeping and zoo-going, forge powerful connections between animal lives and those of humans: in fact, animals have helped define what a human is. They have also been one of the most reliable measures of humans’ disproportionate influence on the environment. From domestication to extinction, the human impact on animal populations has been profound.  In the essays collected in Noble Cows and Hybrid Zebras, Ritvo explores our attitudes toward animals, from cruelty to sentimentality to the indifference of pure practicality, and touches on many social and scientific issues, including genetic engineering and an animal protection movement much older than most readers would think (animal advocacy was a cause embraced by many Victorians).  While Ritvo’s writing represents the cutting edge in animal history, it has always been characterized by its accessibility, and these essays originally appeared not only in scholarly journals but also in Grand Street, Daedalus, and American Scholar. Collected for the first time in a single volume, they reveal an important dimension of human history by looking to those other creatures that have surrounded us all along.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49551831367953,"sku":"GOR013747365","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49802322346257,"sku":"CIN081393060XVG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/081393060X.jpg?v=1763484492"},{"product_id":"platypus-and-the-mermaid-book-harriet-ritvo-9780674673571","title":"The Platypus and the Mermaid","description":"An account of taxonomy, as zoological classification and as anthropological study. The text explores interactions of scientific lore, cultural ideas and the popular imagination, and aims to capture the Victorian fervor for classifying and categorizing each new specimen of plant or animal.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49576274034961,"sku":"GOR001989625","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49992441463057,"sku":"CIN0674673573G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52816896262417,"sku":"CIN0674673573VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0674673573.jpg?v=1750977223"},{"product_id":"platypus-and-the-mermaid-book-harriet-ritvo-9780674673588","title":"The Platypus and the Mermaid","description":"Capturing the fervor of the Victorian age for classifying and categorizing, Ritvo depicts a complex of competing groupsnaturalists and zoologists, farmers and showmen, butchers and artistsdeploying rival schemes to impose order on nature.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49577674440977,"sku":"GOR006647408","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50162349539601,"sku":"CIN0674673581G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52630807347473,"sku":"CIN0674673581VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0674673581.jpg?v=1776766864"},{"product_id":"dawn-of-green-book-harriet-ritvo-9780226720869","title":"The Dawn of Green","description":"Located in the heart of England's Lake District, the placid waters of Thirlmere seem to be the embodiment of pastoral beauty. But under their calm surface lurks the legacy of a nineteenth-century conflict that pitted industrial progress against natural conservation - and helped launch the environmental movement as we know it. Purchased by the city of Manchester in the 1870s, Thirlmere was dammed and converted into a reservoir, its water piped one hundred miles south to the burgeoning industrial city and its workforce. This feat of civil engineering - and of natural resource diversion - inspired one of the first environmental struggles of modern times. \"The Dawn of Green\" re-creates the battle for Thirlmere and the clashes between conservationists who wished to preserve the lake and developers eager to supply the needs of a growing urban population. Bringing to vivid life the colorful and strong-minded characters who populated both sides of the debate, noted historian Harriet Ritvo revisits notions of the natural promulgated by romantic poets, recreationists, resource managers, and industrial developers to establish Thirlmere as the template for subsequent - and continuing - environmental struggles.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49580028363025,"sku":"GOR009108914","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0226720861.jpg?v=1751389707"},{"product_id":"animal-estate-book-harriet-ritvo-9780140118186","title":"The Animal Estate","description":"A picture of how animals such as the queen with her pups, the sportsman with horses and hounds, figured in English thinking during the 19th century and how they served as metaphors for human psychological needs and sociopolitical aspirations.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49581136511249,"sku":"GOR002277030","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50616836391185,"sku":"GOR001963993","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0140118187.jpg?v=1750940009"},{"product_id":"dawn-of-green-book-harriet-ritvo-9780226720821","title":"The Dawn of Green","description":"Purchased by the city of Manchester in the 1870s, Thirlmere was dammed and converted into a reservoir. This book examines the battle for Thirlmere and the clashes between conservationists who wished to preserve the lake and developers eager to meet the needs of industry and a growing urban population.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49609685696785,"sku":"GOR003664159","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49614133494033,"sku":"GOR008872803","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":53336299733265,"sku":"NGR9780226720821","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0226720829.jpg?v=1750876529"},{"product_id":"variation-of-animals-and-plants-under-domestication-book-harriet-ritvo-9780801858666","title":"The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication","description":"The publication of Darwin's \"On the Origin of Species\" in 1859 ignited a public storm he neither wanted nor enjoyed. Having offered his book as a contribution to science, Darwin discovered to his dismay that it was received as an affront by many scientists and as a sacrilege by clergy and Christian citizens. To answer the criticism that his theory was a theory only, and a wild one at that, he published two volumes in 1868 to demonstrate that evolution was obvious to anyone who cared to look at a bull in a pasture or a dog on a hearth. In response those who insisted that species were distinct since creation, Darwin pointed to breeders of pigs and pigeons. In reply to those who protested that human intervention is one thing and natural selection another, he argued, \"If organic beings had not possessed an inherent tendency to vary, man could have done nothing\". To counter those who scorned his descriptions of species in exotic places he submitted local evidence of cabbages and cauliflower. Based on a wide array of sources, from skins and from skeletons, from scientific journals and breeding manuals, Darwin assembled a mass of proof - and a hypothesis about species reversion that risked his reputation anew. \"The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication\" is a two-volume compilation of his thorough and intensive research and the revolutionary conclusions that resulted. A wealth of illustrations support and enhance his findings. This fascinating and courageous undertaking eventually formed the foundation for our current understanding of evolution.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50102413000977,"sku":"CIN0801858666G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0801858666.jpg?v=1750703101"},{"product_id":"animal-estate-book-harriet-ritvo-9780674037076","title":"The Animal Estate","description":"When we think about the Victorian age, we usually envision people together with animals: the Queen and her pugs, the sportsman with horses and hounds, the big game hunter with his wild kill, the gentleman farmer with a prize bull. Harriet Ritvo here gives us a vivid picture of how animals figured in English thinking during the nineteenth century and, by extension, how they served as metaphors for human psychological needs and sociopolitical aspirations.  Victorian England was a period of burgeoning scientific cattle breeding and newly fashionable dog shows; an age of Empire and big game hunting; an era of reform and reformers that saw the birth of the Royal SPCA. Ritvo examines Victorian thinking about animals in the context of other lines of thought: evolution, class structure, popular science and natural history, imperial domination. The papers and publications of people and organizations concerned with agricultural breeding, veterinary medicine, the world of pets, vivisection and other humane causes, zoos, hunting at home and abroad, all reveal underlying assumptions and deeply held convictions—for example, about Britain’s imperial enterprise, social discipline, and the hierarchy of orders, in nature and in human society.  Thus this book contributes a new new topic of inquiry to Victorian studies; its combination of rhetorical analysis with more conventional methods of historical research offers a novel perspective on Victorian culture. And because nineteenth-century attitudes and practices were often the ancestors of contemporary ones, this perspective can also inform modern debates about human–animal interactions.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50132782547217,"sku":"GOR012625856","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50507029381393,"sku":"GOR004932374","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51424143343889,"sku":"CIN0674037073G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53396834287889,"sku":"CIN0674037073VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/B005AZ2R74.jpg?v=1750784033"},{"product_id":"animal-estate-book-harriet-ritvo-9780674037069","title":"The Animal Estate","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhen we think about the Victorian age, we usually envision people together with animals: the Queen and her pugs, the sportsman with horses and hounds, the big game hunter with his wild kill, the gentleman farmer with a prize bull. 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