The Biophilia Hypothesis (Shearwater Book)

Why is it that most of us find baby animals irresistibly cute? Why do so many people fear even the sight of snakes? What prompts us to feed birds, to allow cats to roam around the house at will, to admire the lines of dogs and horses? Stephen Kellert and Edward Wilson, the prolific Harvard biologist, gather essays by various hands on these and other questions, and the result is a fascinating glimpse into our relations with other animals. Humans, Wilson writes, have an innate (or at least extremely ancient) connection to the natural world, and our continued divorce from it has led to the loss of not only "a vast intellectual legacy born of intimacy" with nature but also our very sanity. There is much to ponder in this timely book.