Customer Reviews

Heartsblood: Hunting, Spirituality, and Wildness in America

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

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."

I found this to be a thoughtful and compelling analysis of not only the issues involved hunting but in man's overall relationship with the environment. Petersen deftly cuts through the hyperbole surrounding the hunting debate and presents fascinating insights into the subject, often backed by personal experiences. Must reading for anyone involved in (or for that matter against) hunting.

Once again, Petersen proves he is a (the?) leading writer on the subject of why hunters hunt, drawing from the existing literature and expanding on the subject in a way that is both accessible yet scholarly, with wit to boot. Critical of both the "shoot anything that moves" camp and its supporters in the mainstream hunting press, as well as anti-hunters (although sympathetic to thinking non-hunters), Heartsblood is a must-read for those who seek clarity on why *they* hunt, or who seek insight into the mind of the hunter.

There is not enough space in this review block to enlighten the uninformed as to what propells an ethical hunter. Suffice to say it is a passion...a love of the wild and things wild and finding a niche in this timeless chain for one's self. If you don't hunt, this book will help you understand why your dad or neighbour or uncle will waste countless hours in adverse freezing conditions in a deer stand or a duck blind. However, if you do hunt, this book is worth it just for the expose' of the roots of the "Bambi" syndrome and the unethical mechanisms used to discredit a heritage freedom and a nobel and ethical pursuit.

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.

While I agree with much of what Peterson so enthusiastically preaches and have read many of his favorite sources, I found myself hating the book. This book calls out more than any book I have ever read for a rigorous editing. It is hard to believe it was not self published. This book lacks a thesis and is poorly organized. Worse, Peterson's vocabularly is often curiously wrong and his writing style is perhaps best described as ugly. Further, it is hard to get through a paragraph without one or more parenthethical interruptions -- he even uses parenthesis inside of parenthesis! Instead of bothering with this book, read A HUNTER'S HEART (some great essays which Peterson edited but thankfully did not write) and Meditations on Hunting by Jose Ortega Y Gassett.

There is not enough space in this review block to enlighten the uninformed as to what propells an ethical hunter. Suffice to say it is a passion...a love of the wild and things wild and finding a niche in this timeless chain for one's self. If you don't hunt, this book will help you understand why your dad or neighbour or uncle will waste countless hours in adverse freezing conditions in a deer stand or a duck blind. However, if you do hunt, this book is worth it just for the expose' of the roots of the "Bambi" syndrome and the unethical mechanisms used to discredit a heritage freedom and a nobel and ethical pursuit.

A great topic--the spirituality of hunting. A bit egotistical in approach. Only can read in short spirts.