On Hunting [Hardcover]

Roger Scruton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2002

The feelings stirred by hunting are here explored by writer and philosopher Roger Scruton. Drawing on his own experiences of hunting, and offering a portrait of the people and animals who take part in it, Scruton introduces the reader to some of the mysteries of country life.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

"My life divides into three parts," philosopher-journalist Scruton says. "In the first I was wretched; in the second ill at ease; in the third hunting." He wasn't born to the hunt. His parents were industrial Midlanders, and his ardent Labourite father, despairing of his son's class loyalties when his scion was admitted to a grammar school with public school pretensions, was partly mollified only when Roger "skived off sports, . . . opt[ed] out of cadets, and was generally . . . unhappy and insolent." He discovered hunting accidentally, when out riding a generally docile horse owned by a colleague. A foxhunt passed by and, after standing a while mesmerized by it, the old steed took off to join it and proved to be "a 'front-runner,' a horse determined to be first in the herd." Scruton was hooked and has been hunting ever since for a complex of reasons he lays out, explains, and proselytizes in this thoroughly delightful essay that is not without its depths of patriotic feeling, interspecies fellowship, small-c conservative sentiment--and bone-wrenching unsaddlings. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

Roger Scruton lives in Wiltshire where he hunts with the Beaufort and Vale of White Horse. He is the author of over twenty books and is a well-known media personality. A knight-errant on behalf of forgotten truth, he has espoused every cause deemed lost by mad modernity. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 173 pages
• Publisher: St. Augustines Press; 1 edition (May 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1587316005
• ISBN-13: 978-1587316005
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #968,159 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful mind, March 26, 2006

By 

Mark Allen (NH, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: On Hunting (Hardcover)

This is a very quick and enjoyable read ... a weekend delight about weekend delights gone by.
I both hunt and read philosophy, so I'm biased to like this book on two counts.
Nonetheless, I'd highly recommend this work to anyone with an interest in philosophy who is curious about hunting, or to a hunter who likes to think. I guess one third character need apply: the post-modern untermensch with an aching sense that something is wrong with his heart and his world, and a desire to learn what that might be. Some insightful hints are found between these covers.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Soulful, March 4, 2008

By 

Cressida (SAUNDERSTOWN, RI, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: On Hunting (Hardcover)

This a short but important work by Roger Scuton. Its importance consists in witnessing how an active and insightful mind, such as his, can see nature and beauty in the world around him. His concise and wonderful prose is a lesson to those who wish to learn what makes life worth living. In a way, it is journal of how Scruton came to self-knowledge, not through abstractions and academic jargon, but through sensitivity to what life offers. He begins with hunting but he ends with a moving romance with nature itself. In this regard, hunting is but a window into his soul and the limits of human nature. I have read all of his books and this one ranks among the best. A must read.

13 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very funny, very well written, very good philosophy too, June 9, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: On Hunting (Yellow Jersey Shorts) (Hardcover)

This is Scruton at his best in non academic writing. If you ever wondered what fox hunting had to do with Aristotle, Plato, Kant (and possibly even Heiddiger, the man not the tunelling boring machine) this is the place to look. It is also a good present for parents of philosophy students who wonder if their offspring are doing a safe or sensible subject. They'll have no worries after reading this. I recommend it very highly, except for sad socialists.