Zebra by Christopher Plumb

Zebra by Christopher Plumb

Common and exotic, glamorous and ferocious, sociable and sullen: zebras mean many things to many people. The extraordinary beauty of their striped coats makes them one of the world's most recognizable animals. They have been immortalized in paint by artists including George Stubbs and Lucian Freud, and zebra-print designs permeate contemporary society - on beanbags and bikinis, car seats and pencil cases. Zebras even have a road crossing named after them. But the natural and cultural history of the zebra remains a mystery to most. Few know that there are three species of zebra, or that one of these is currently endangered, or that the quagga, an animal that once roamed southern Africa in large numbers before dying out in the 1880s, is among the zebra's many subspecies. Zebra is a comprehensive and wide-ranging study of the natural and cultural history of this popular animal. Using a wide range of sources and stories, it shows how the zebra's history engages and intersects with diverse topics, including eighteenth-century humour, imperialism and camouflage technologies. Including more than a hundred illustrations, many previously unpublished, it offers a new way of thinking about this much-loved but frequently misunderstood animal.

Samuel Shaw is an artist, writer and art historian. He teaches at the University of Birmingham. Christopher Plumb is a cultural historian and his first book was The Georgian Menagerie: Exotic Animals in Eighteenth-century London (2015).

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781780239354
ISBN 10	1780239351
Title	Zebra
Author	Christopher Plumb
Series	Animal
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Reaktion Books
Year published	2018-05-14
Number of pages	216
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable