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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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, author of the New York Times bestseller Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? and Mama's Last Hug; Animal Emotions and What They Tell Us about Ourselves

Never truly domesticated, many elephants in Southeast Asia work for humans during the day and yet are 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 relationship 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, author of the best-selling Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? and Mama's Last Hug No one who loves elephants or how humans interact with wildlife should pass up Jacob Shell's remarkable book. From Hannibal's elephants, to those of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, to the author's own accounts of logging elephants in Burma, Shell's stories of these intelligent animals and their human companions sing with compassion. I was thoroughly hooked.--Dan Flores, author of the New York Times best-seller Coyote America: A Natural and Supernatural History

Author Information

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

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