Overview

For more than a thousand years, people in the rainforests of India and Burma have worked with elephants to log these otherwise impassable forests and move people and goods (often illicitly) under cover of the forest canopy. Jacob Shell takes us deep into this strange elephant country to explore the lives of these extraordinarily intelligent creatures and their relationship with humans. Visiting tiny logging villages and forest camps, Shell describes fascinating characters, both elephant and human, and interweaves his account with the incredible history of this centuries-long alliance. Giants of the Monsoon Forest offers new perspective on animal intelligence and shows us how Asia's secret forest culture might offer a way to save elephants and protect our wilderness.

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Giants of the Monsoon Forest makes a powerfully, though subtly, persuasive case for elephants to continue as working animals. Highly readable, it should appeal to a wide audience, just as the writing of did in an earlier gen -- Times Literary Supplement Never truly domesticated, many elephants in South East Asia worked for humans during the day yet were let go at night to forage in the forest. Jacob Shell discusses this age-old pact between two brainy species. Even if our view of the human-animal relation is changing, the awe in which we hold elephants is amply fed by the stories and history in this fascinating book, especially those in which elephants appear to use their own judgment to solve problems in the field. -- Frans de Waal ... thought-provoking study... -- Nature In the end, Giants of the Monsoon Forest offers an absorbing look at the dual world of semicaptive Asian elephants and convincingly argues for the interdependence of elephants and forest protection. -- Science

Author Information

Jacob Shell  is a professor of geography and urban studies at Temple University. He lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

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