Animal Companions - Pets and Social Change in Eighteenth-Century Britain

Although pets existed in Europe long before the eighteenth century, the dominant belief was that pet keeping was at best frivolous and at worst downright dangerous. In Animal Companions, Ingrid Tague explores the eighteenth-century conversation about the presence of pets in British society and the ways in which that conversation both reflected and shaped broader cultural debates. Tague argues that pets, as neither human nor fully part of the natural world, offered a unique way for Britons of the eighteenth century to articulate what it meant to be human and what their society ought to look like.

Having emerged from the Malthusian cycle of dearth and famine at the end of the seventeenth century, England became the wealthiest nation in Europe, with unprecedented access to consumer goods of all kinds. And closely connected with these material changes was the Enlightenment, with its implications for contemporary understanding of religion, science, and non-European cultures. All these transformations generated both excitement and anxiety, and they were reflected in debates over the rights and wrongs of human-animal relationships. Looking at a wide variety of texts, Tague shows how pets became both increasingly visible indicators of spreading prosperity and catalysts for debates about the morality of the radically different society emerging in this period.

About the author

Ingrid H. Tague is Associate Dean of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences and Associate Professor of History at the University of Denver.

Summary

Explores how thinking about pets in eighteenth-century Britain reflected and influenced the great social and cultural debates of the day, including struggles over gender, race, class, and national identity.

Product details

• Authors: Ingrid H (Professor of History Tague, Ingrid H. Tague, Ingrid H. (s Tague, S Ingrid H (Professor of History Tague, Tague Ingrid H.
• Publisher: Penn State University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 31.05.2015
• EAN: 9780271065892
• ISBN: 978-0-271-06589-2
• No. of pages: 320
• Series: Animalibus; Animalibus: Of Animals and Cul; Animalibus; Animalibus: Of Animals and Cul
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > General, dictionaries; European History, HISTORY / Europe / General, HISTORY / World, HISTORY / Social History, Social & cultural history, HISTORY / Europe / Western, General & world history, British & Irish history, United Kingdom, Great Britain, HISTORY / Europe / Great Britain / General