The Tender Carnivore and the Sacred Game

by Shepard, Paul

• ISBN13: 9780820319810
• ISBN10: 0820319813
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-02-01
• Publisher: Univ of Georgia Pr

Summary

In what may be his boldest and most controversial book, Paul Shepard presents an account of human behavior and ecology in light of our past. In it, he contends that agriculture is responsible for our ecological decline and looks to the hunting and gathering lifestyle as a model more closely in tune with our essential nature. Shepard advocates affirming the profound and beautiful nature of the hunter and gatherer, redefining agriculture and combining technology with hunting and gathering to recover a livable environment and peaceful society.

Author Biography

Paul Shepard (1925-1996) was Avery Professor of Natural Philosophy and Human Ecology at Pitzer College in Claremont, California. He is the author of twelve books, a number of which are available from the University of Georgia Press.

Table of Contents

Foreword	ix	(16)
Introduction	xxv
1. Ten Thousand Years of Crisis	1	(36)
Making Wild Sheep Tame
Husbandry, a Failure of Biological Style
The Invention of Drudgery and Catastrophe
The Lower Savagery
Farming, an Ecological Disease
2. On the Responsibility of Being an Ape	37	(50)
The Evolution of Immaturity and Innocence
High Society
The Terrestrials
The Apes, Our Cousins
3. On the Significance of Being Shaped by the Past	87	(42)
The Elegant Refinements of Social Carnivorousness
Ancestors of the Hunting Heart
On Agression and the Tender Carnivore
4. Hunting as a Way of Life	129	(46)
The Band of Hunter-Gatherers
The Venatic Art
Cynegetic Man
Toolmaking as Natural History
The Totemic Vision
5. The Karma of Adolescence	175	(60)
Self and Not-Self
Discontinuity and Multiplicity
Names and Games as the Purpose of Childhood
The Initiates
The Necessity of Risk and Solitude
Dream Time as History
The Antinomians
6. The Choice: Industrial Agriculture or Techno-Cynegetics	235	(46)
The Cultural Basis of Ecological Crisis
The Perils of the Green Revolution
The New Cynegetics
Appendix	281	(4)
Bibliography	285	(12)
Index	297