Heartsblood: Hunting, Spirituality, and Wildness in America [Hardcover]

David Petersen (Author), Ted Williams (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 2000

In this age of boneless chicken breasts and drive-thru Happy Meals, why do some humans still hunt? Is it a visceral, tooth-and-claw hunger for meat, tied in a primitive savage knot with an innate lust for violence and domination? Or might it be a hunger of an entirely different sort? And if so, what?.

In Heartsblood, writer and veteran outdoorsman David Petersen offers a thoroughly informed, unsettlingly honest, intensely personal exploration of this increasingly contentious issue. He draws clear distinctions between true hunting and contemporary hunter behavior, praising what's right about the former and damning what's wrong with the latter, as he seeks to render the terms "hunter" and "antihunter" palpable-to put faces on these much-used but little-understood generalizations.

Petersen looks at the evolutionary roots and philosophical underpinnings of hunting, and offers a compelling portrait of an "animistic archetype"-a paradigm for the true hunter/conservationist-that is in sharp contrast with today's technology-laden, gadget-loving sport hunter. He considers the social and ecological implications of trophy hunting and deconstructs the "Bambi syndrome"-the oversentimentalization of young animals by most Americans, including many hunters. He also explores gender issues in hunting, and highlights important qualities that are largely missing in today's mentoring of tomorrow's hunters.

Throughout, Petersen emphasizes the fundamental spiritual aspects of hunting, and offers numerous finely drawn and compelling first-person hunting narratives that explain and provide substance to his arguments. Along with that personal experience, he draws on philosophy, evolutionary theory, biology, and empirical studies to create an engaging and literate work that offers a unique look at hunting, hunters, and, in the words of the author, "life's basic truths.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Natural-history writer David Petersen's Heartsblood is not so much about hunting, although that controversial subject is an important part of the book, as is a lively, deeply intelligent discussion of what it means to be a human animal aware of what lies outside. Petersen suggests that a true engagement with the natural world requires a keen knowledge of its workings--of how water flows, of how animal populations wax and wane--and a recognition of the realities of life and death.

An avid fisherman and hunter, Petersen has little patience with the yahoos who blast at anything in sight, those thoughtless persons who have given hunting a bad name. Neither does he suffer lightly those who maintain that hunting is morally wrong, for, he insists, in the absence of natural predators, hunters act as a necessary brake on overpopulation, which can lead only to suffering. He has little use for expensive gear, for GPS systems and top-of-the-line weapons, nor for most hunting magazines, which, he says, cater to just those yahoos with a taste for fancy goodies, and which he deems "greedy and increasingly immoral."

With all those peeves and qualifications, it would not be out of place for Petersen to assume a grumpy air. For the most part, however, he does not; he is cordial to those who disagree with his views, which he carefully backs with biological facts, philosophical and anthropological interpretations, and reflections gathered from a half-century's experience in the wild. His book deserves a wide audience, and the ideas within it merit much discussion as thoughtful men and women everywhere do what they can to protect what little is left of nature--a struggle in which hunting, Petersen holds, can play an important part. --Gregory McNamee

From Publishers Weekly

Petersen brings an uncommonly broad perspective to this highly personal, passionate and deeply persuasive argument for responsible hunting. He reminds us that humans have been predominantly hunters for 99% of our species' history; by comparison agriculture occupies merely a brief moment in the human timeline and the era of shrink-wrapped supermarket meat even less. Biologically, we were built to hunt, he contends, a reality carved into the human genome as deeply as wildness imprints the genetic makeup of prey. Denying our genetic predisposition makes us less than fully human, he argues, which will undoubtedly strike many as radical. But Petersen is not a polemicist bent on pushing every citizen into hunting. In fact, he calls himself a "fence-straddler," an advocate of animal welfare (which he differentiates from animal rights) who has been criticized by antihunters as "rabidly prohunting" and knocked by hunters' rights advocates as "an anti in hunter's camouflage." Much of Petersen's argument (his delineation of the three different types of hunters, his criticism of holier-than-thou vegetarianism, his disdain of trophy hunting) treads a well-worn path, but this ambivalence lends his conclusions greater credibility. More unique and provocative is his contention that humans, far from evolving beyond the need to kill our own food, instead risk devolving when we avoid facing firsthand the deaths that sustain our survival. Though he goes overboard in strumming the mystical chord and seems at times too fond of inflated language, Petersen's ambitious analysis of this contentious issue is impressively well reasoned. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Island Press; 1 edition (August 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1559637617
• ISBN-13: 978-1559637619
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #862,543 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars thoughtprovoking, careful, enlightening, August 28, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Heartsblood: Hunting, Spirituality, and Wildness in America (Hardcover)

As a curious non-hunter who worries about the hunters in my extended family and what they will teach their children, I turned to this book for insights. I was not disappointed. I found what I wanted from Petersen. He is respectful, knowledgeable, and he writes from experience backed by scholarship. I will send this book to my brother-in-law and hope it inspires him to teach his children to hunt in an ethical, respectful, environmentally sound manner.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars With compelling first-person hunting narratives, November 8, 2001

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Heartsblood: Hunting, Spirituality, and Wildness in America (Hardcover)

In Heartsblood: Hunting, Spirituality, And Wildness In America, author, editor, and wilderness expert David Peterson provides the reader with an informed, intensely personal, candid, and occasionally unsettling exploration on the subject of hunting in American culture. Petersen documents his observations with compelling first-person hunting narratives, as he also draws upon philosophy, evolutionary theory, biology, and scholarly studies on hunters and the "hunting culture". Hunting issues are as topical as today's newspaper headlines. Heartsblood is a welcome and very highly recommended contribution to familial, environmental, and political dialogues over the role of hunters and hunting in our lives, culture, and society for both good and ill.

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Discover the world we were all born to live..., October 13, 2000

By 

Mitchell Caldwell (Mount Angel, Oregon USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Heartsblood: Hunting, Spirituality, and Wildness in America (Hardcover)

I say with sincere passion and humility when I say that David Petersen is my favorite author of all time. No one, in my humble opinion, gives me the ride I seek in literature like Petersen. His ability to deliver critical conservation, evolutionary and spiritual messages in this current state of our world is beyond compare. He is fun, brilliant and spellbounds the spiritual seeker in all of those who seek "the lessons that only nature can teach."