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Man's best friend, domesticated since prehistoric times, a travelling companion for explorers and artists, thinkers and walkers, equally happy curled up by the fire and bounding through the great outdoors--dogs matter to us because we love them. But is that all there is to the canine's good-natured voracity and affectionate dependency?
Mark Alizart dispenses with the well-worn clichés concerning dogs and their masters, seeing them not as submissive pets but rather as unexpected life coaches, ready to teach us the elusive recipes for contentment and joy. Dogs have faced their fate in life with a certain detachment that is not easy to understand. Unlike other animals in a similar situation, they have not become hardened, nor have they let themselves die a little inside. On the contrary, they seem to have softened. This book is devoted to understanding this miracle, the miracle of the joy of dogs - to understanding it and, if at all possible, to learning how it's done.
Weaving elegantly and eruditely between historical myth and pop-culture anecdote, between the peculiar views of philosophers and the even more bizarre findings of science, Alizart offers us a surprising new portrait of the dog as thinker--a thinker who may perhaps know the true secret of our humanity.
List of contents
Acknowledgements
The Joy of Dogs
The Shame of the Animal Kingdom
Canis Major
Twixt Dog and Wolf
Sola Fido
The Dog Vinci Code
Darwin's Dogs
Companion Species Manifesto
Ecce Canis
Dog Years
Portrait of the philosopher as a dog
Oedipus Rex
Sons of a bitch
We Are All Inuits
A Tergo More Ferarum
The Mark of Cain
The Big Bark
Gabriel
Epilogue
About the author
Mark Alizart is a writer and philosopher who lives in Paris. He is also the happy owner of a dog.
Summary
Man's best friend, domesticated since prehistoric times, a travelling companion for explorers and artists, thinkers and walkers, equally happy curled up by the fire and bounding through the great outdoors--dogs matter to us because we love them. But is that all there is to the canine's good-natured voracity and affectionate dependency?
Mark Alizart dispenses with the well-worn clichés concerning dogs and their masters, seeing them not as submissive pets but rather as unexpected life coaches, ready to teach us the elusive recipes for contentment and joy. Dogs have faced their fate in life with a certain detachment that is not easy to understand. Unlike other animals in a similar situation, they have not become hardened, nor have they let themselves die a little inside. On the contrary, they seem to have softened. This book is devoted to understanding this miracle, the miracle of the joy of dogs - to understanding it and, if at all possible, to learning how it's done.
Weaving elegantly and eruditely between historical myth and pop-culture anecdote, between the peculiar views of philosophers and the even more bizarre findings of science, Alizart offers us a surprising new portrait of the dog as thinker--a thinker who may perhaps know the true secret of our humanity.
Report
"Mark Alizart returns to the history of civilizations to restore to the dog its essential role. Far from being a mere companion of man, might the dog ultimately be his master?"
France Culture
"This plea to restore to the dog 'its ancient rights' echoes intelligently the present-day sensibility for the animal cause."
L'Express
"A clever treatise of canine philosophy."
Le Monde
"Delightful."
The Spectator
"Seminal . . . [Alizart] makes a compelling case on why dogs matter and articulates the important lessons they can impart to us."
The Bark
"charming . . . a book that should be read quickly and taken lightly as a dog takes life."
Arkansas Democrat Gazette
