The 'Sacred Paw' looks at the long and profound relationship between bears and humans. The bear is deeply embedded in the human psyche ... from teh fearsomely grizzly, to the paternal Smokey, to the beloved Teddy. Bear images are as widespread in our culture as were the myths and legends about bears that formed a crucial part of early societies. A symbol of harmony in nature, the bear was regarded by our ancestors with a mixture of awe, fear, and veneration. In many ways, the bear is like man, combining strength with dexterity and possessing skill in using tools as hunting weapons. Bears are attentive parents (at least the female are), and their natural curiosity, playfulness, and intelligence have endowed them with an almost human personality. In delightful detail and fascinating variety, 'The Sacred Paw' examines all these special qualities and more, illuminating the bear's immemorial place in our language, religion, and consciousness.

The Sacred Paw: The Bear in Nature, Myth, and Literature

Crafts, Hobbies & Home

Paul Shepard

Barry Sanders

Pets & Animal Care

Penguin Group/Arkana

Thinking Animals: Animals and the Development of Human Intelligence

In a world increasingly dominated by human beings, the survival of other species becomes more and more questionable. In this brilliant book, Paul Shepard offers a provocative alternative to an us or them mentality, proposing that other species are integral to humanity's evolution and exist at the core of our imagination. This trait, he argues, compels us to think of animals in order to be human. Without other living species by which to measure ourselves, Shepard warns, we would be less mature, care less for and be more careless of all life, including our own kind.

Thinking Animals : Animals and the Development of Human Intelligence

Science & Math

Biological Sciences

Bt Bound

A pioneering exploration of the roots of our attitudes toward nature, Paul Shepard's most seminal work is as challenging and provocative today as when it first appeared in 1967. Man in the Landscape was among the first books of a new genre that has elucidated the ideas, beliefs, and images that lie behind our modern destruction and conservation of the natural world.Departing from the traditional study of land use as a history of technology, this book explores the emergence of modern attitudes in literature, art, and architecture&mdash;their evolutionary past and their taproot in European and Mediterranean cultures. With humor and wit, Shepard considers the influence of Christianity on ideas of nature, the absence of an ethic of nature in modern philosophy, and the obsessive themes of dominance and control as elements of the modern mind. In his discussions of the exploration of the American West, the establishment of the first national parks, and the reactions of pioneers to their totally new habitat, he identifies the transport of traditional imagery into new places as a sort of cultural baggage.

Man in the Landscape: A Historic View of the Esthetics of Nature (Environmental History Ser. Series, 11)

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

Texas A & M Univ Pr

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Books by Paul Shepard