Customer Reviews

Monster of God: The Man-Eating Predator in the Jungles of History and the Mind

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I really enjoyed this exceptional book on the mythology, culture, history, and biology of man-eaters around the world. Though he primarily focuses on four specific animals - the Asiatic lion in the forest of Gir in India, the saltwater crocodile in northern Australia, the brown bear in the forests and mountains of Romania, and the Siberian (or more properly Amur) tiger of the Russian Far East- author David Quammen discusses other predators as well, such as the African lion, the grizzly of North America, the Nile crocodile, and the leopard as well as some now extinct species.

Quammen does an excellent job of covering just about any aspect you might wish to learn about animals that occasionally dine on man. Aspects of ecology are very well covered, introducing the reader to many key concepts in ecology (particularly as they relate to these creatures), such as the terms alpha predator, keystone species, and trophic cascades, showing that for a healty ecosystem - including healthy plants and prey animals - the presence of a viable population of predator is crucial. The education this book gave me on ecology was quite remarkable, with the author going into very readable detail on many issues and very interestingly their history as well, showing some of the personalities behind their conception. The individual biology and paleontology of each of the focus species in this book are well covered, as well as that of close and more distant relations, covering everything from the rise and fall of sabertooth mammals (feline and otherwise) to the spread of the tiger species throughout Asia (and its later evolution into various subspecies).

Equally interesting - and valuable - in this work Quammen goes into great detail about the interaction between humans and the top predators throughout world history as well as the situation to date. How have large predators - such as perhaps cave bears and cave lions - shaped the evolution (physically and culturally) of ancient peoples? How have such animals shaped the development of human art, literature, mythology, and religion? Quammen brings into this rather engrossing discussion everything from Babylonian epics to Beowulf to Tolkien.

Quammen does not only focus on the animals, but on their sometime victims as well. He looks at how have native peoples dealt with man-eaters in the past and how do traditional peoples deal with them today. Quammen is very sensitive to the lives of those who face (and occassionally feed) these predators, really bringing to life for the reader such diverse groups as the Malhadris of India, the Udege of Russia, and the shepherds of Romania. Quammen vividly contrasts this with looking at how has the coming of colonial enterprises and regimes (such as the British in India and Australia) changed interactions with local alpha predators.

Perhaps most importantly, this book asks what does the future hold for such predators? Will they always have a guaranteed place in the wild, outside of zoos and circuses? How can one make sure that they do? There is quite a debate raging on how to make sure that forests still stalk the snowy forests of the Russian Far East and the billabongs of steamy northern Australia and Quammen provides excellent coverage of all sides.

A very valuable and entertaining book, it has a very extensive bibilography as well. I highly recommend it.

This book is amazing. As in it's predecessor, The Song of the Dodo, David Quammen acheives an amazing feat by combining science, travel stories, literature, history, and philosophy (and a sprinkling of pop culture) into a compelling discussion of the fate of what he calls "alpha predators" in this modern world. Quammen traveled to India to visit people living among lions (yes, lions), Australia to visit people living among crocodiles, Romania to visit people living with brown bears (who knew?), and the Russian Far East to visit people living with tigers. Each of these pieces is a distinct story by itself, with its own set of characters, yet Quammen sews them all together with common concerns about predators, prey, and who pays the price of having these alpha predators around. Sensitive to traditional cultures as he is to natural ecosystems, Quammen is a great writer producing unique literature that is important for our time.

. . . and meet politics and globalisation. The encounter, reported by North America's foremost nature journalist, is an informative, exquisite read. Quammen's value in explaining Nature's realm is demonstrated by his many excellent works. This one achieves a new level of excellence as he travels the planet seeking that which we fear most - predators. Not just any predators, but what he terms the "alpha predators" - large, solitary and figures of fearful legend. Legends play a large role in how we view the rest of Nature. No matter how strenuously we try to separate ourselves from our environment, Quammen argues, it will return to confront us.

Quammen focuses on four predators in this account - the Asian lion, the crocodile, bears in Romania and "Siberian" tigers. Surrounded by humans and their legends and lifestyles, this quartette symbolises our conflicting views of animals with reputations as "man-eaters". Disdaining accusations of "sexist" or other cultural labels surrounding his terms, Quamman confronts us with the realities of human-predator interactions. Lions, which once roamed from Atlantic Europe to Eastern Asia, have been pushed into meagre enclaves outside of Africa. They, along with the crocodiles, bears and Amur tigers are surrounded by human neighbours. Quammen explains that the long-term human residents, the Mahldari in India, Aborigines of Australia, the Romanian shepherds and Ugede of Eastern Russia have formed accomodating
relationships with their proximate predator populations. The oft-repeated phrase is "don't bother them and they won't bother you".

Changes in political and economic forces, Quammen contends, bring changes to those relationships. While national governments may strive to protect these select species, local conditions are being overturned. Globalisation intrudes on local economic and political structures, changing market demands, resource allocation and use, and the lifestyles of both predators and their prey. Populations shift in response, habitats are invaded or destroyed and abrupt changes confront traditional lifestyles. These are adjustments forced within a lifetime, not over generations. Quammen shows how we must learn quickly and immediately before the damage from the changes are irreparable.

What role does a predator play in the natural order of life? Shouldn't we simply eliminate these "dangerous" lifeforms? Quammen's primary example seems wholly out of place at first glance. One researcher removed a predatory starfish from a section of beach near Seattle. The result, in a very short time, was a substantial shift in other species balance in the area. Quammen's own contacts among the topical predators' human neighbours echo the sentiment - remove the animals and the habitat follows. The impact is uncalcuable. The lesson is glaringly clear - we need these "ferocious" creatures to maintain the environment we inhabit.

Quammen departs from mainstream conservatism in this excellent study. The role of humanity may not be cast aside and species isolated for protection. He urges a role for hunting, for skins, for culling where needed. These activities, distasteful to some, can be beneficial when applied with informed controls. There are no simple answers to maintaining diversity. We must all be aware of the issues involved, and this book is a fine place to begin learning. Graced with a set of maps and an extensive bibliography, Monster of God is an important and erudite account. Put it at the top of your reading list. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

I've read most of Quammen's books, and I strongly recommend reading "Song of the Dodo" before this one. That is Quammen's best, and one of the greatest popular science books ever written, a thrilling, enlightening classic. This one is just ok.

This one has potential: exploring the habitats of "man-eating" predators, the mythology surrounding them, their place in human psychology, the struggle to preserve them and the questions in that struggle. It could be a fascinating book, and it is pretty darn good.

Quammen looks at the Asiatic Lion, which plays a prominent role in the Bible and the rest of ancient European and Near-Eastern culture. But today it only remains in a small and shrinking forest in western India. Quammen goes there and reports on the lifestyles of the people who live in and around that forest, and the chances for the lion's survival.

Then he moves to the saltwater crocodile, especially in Australia. Here he does a good job exploring the economic significance of the crocodile and the leather industry, and also on the relations of various aboriginal groups to the crocodile. He does not tell us much about the Australian government's role in conservation, although that must be signficant as well.

Next he turns to the grizzlies of Romania, called brown bears everywhere outside of North America. He gives a decent history of their popularity in Yellowstone and Glacier parks, and a great coverage of their place in Romanian forest management, sport hunting, and shepherding. Of course Ceaucescu forms the constant background to the story of the bears in Romania.

Finally he goes to the Russian Far East, around Vladivostok, to learn about the situation of the Siberian Tiger. (Not the white-tiger mutants in zoos.) Again he considers the way the traditional local inhabitants feel about the tigers. Here he could have given a better coverage of the Chinese medicine black market for tiger parts--a fascinating subject that hangs over the Siberian tiger, but Quammen barely touches it.

From there he turns to Beowulf, Gilgamesh and the Alien movies.

Quammen's worldview holds that we humans need an element of wildness, and that our technology and climate control is eliminating not only many beautiful, fascinating creatures but also an essential part of our psyche. He doesn't force his view on his readers, but it is obviously in the background.

I was a little disappointed with this book, honestly. I'm a big fan of Quammen, and I expected a lot; it's still better than most other pop-sci books out there. But I'd like to have a better sense of each of these animals' lives: what do they eat, how often do they reproduce, what parasites and diseases do they struggle with, what are the specific immediate and long-term threats to their survival? Moreover, he did a great job looking at Beowulf and Alien, and a pretty good job looking at Gilgamesh. I wish he'd thrown in a few more great monster myths, or myths that show other aspects of the animals he covered, such as the tiger as protector, as creator of the world, and so on. Finally, I wish he'd included a few more predators, especially the python and the Nile crocodile. I would happily have read an 800 page book if he'd written one. But I'm too much of a Quammen fan to deduct a star: the problem isn't that he wrote anything badly or made any mistakes, just that he didn't write enough.

Yet.

If you've read "The Song of the Dodo", you'll most likely be disappointed by David Quammen's most recent book. "Monster of God" is a fair effort but it fails to blend as many interesting elements into its narrative as his former award-winning book and, considering the subject matter, is surprisingly dull. Perhaps Quammen played down the topic to keep his book from being another piece of "predator porn." If that was his intent, he was too successful. The book's very flatness runs counter to one of Quammen's themes: that these flesh-eating beasts send a primordial chill through the blood of men.

"Monster of God" is primarily about four predators: the Asian lion of Gir, the saltwater crocodile of Australia and India, the Romanian brown bear, and the Amur tiger. Quammen travels to each place to see first-hand the interaction between man and these fierce beasts and to try and understand if there is any future for these mega-predators. He gives almost equal time to the men and women who live alongside these animals, and presents a sympathetic view of the threat some of these people must live with.

But, too often, the book works at cross-purposes. Despite the fear-inspiring title, the occasional tales of woe from villagers who knew relatives of friends killed or attacked by the beasts, and the search through classical literature and cave art for man's impulse to fear these creatures, when the predators finally make their entrance in the book, they don't seem the slightest bit fearsome. The Asian lion, apparently, is only a serious threat to kill men after a drought has killed his usual prey. The Amur tiger is far more likely to kill dogs than men, and is rarely seen even by very experienced guides. The brown bear of Romania is an occasional threat to livestock, but there are almost no incidents of it attacking men. Only the saltwater crocodile seems a constant threat to those living in its territory. Even Quammen's tales of the men and women who must live in close proximity with these creatures seem mostly ambivalent toward the danger. In short, where is the so-called *monster* of God?

The book also fails to provide a coherent framework for what is obviously a pressing question: what can be done to save these fascinating creatures? Quammen looks at the commercialization of saltwater crocodiles in Australia (and the lack thereof in India), the preservation of the brown bear in Romania and the Asian lion in India, and the faltering efforts to save the Amur tiger, but he never attempts to put it together in a way that the reader might glean some solution to the problem. He grudgingly admits that the kind of commercialization Australia practices with the saltwater crocodile might work in some situations, but seems against it for aesthetic reasons. He sees that Communism worked for the preservation of both Romanian brown bear and the Amur tiger, but obviously bringing back Communism is no answer. And he appreciates the role luck played for the Asian lion by providing a final sanctuary for it at Gir that humans found unsuitable for agriculture. But where does it all lead?

Quammen obviously can't provide answers he doesn't know, but he appears unable to seriously engage the question in a fruitful search. Instead, he seems resigned to what he believes is the animals' final fate: extinction. It may also be that Quammen simply chose too few case studies to come up with anything worthwhile. Whereas in "The Song of the Dodo", he traveled to numerous islands and seemed to work harder to present a wide variety of lessons from them, here he limits himself to four cases that don't seem to provide much beyond the fact that man has a hard time living with large predators. Consequently, I finished the book knowing a few more interesting details about rare lions, tigers, bears, and crocs, but little else.

Taking the reader on a voyage across the globe, David Quammen tries to distill the essence of man-eating predators down to something that people across the world can appreciate before it is too late.

Quammen focuses on four distinct predators: the asiatic lions of the Gir forest in India, the crocodiles of the Arnhem Land Reserve in Northen Australia, the brown bears of the Carpathian Mountains of Romania, and the tigers of the Sikhote-Alin range in the Russian Far East. It is the predators, people and their interactions that make up most of the book. Sort of a travel narrative that focuses on the people and wildlife. The rest of the book contains Quammen's ruminations on the predator in human culture and literature (Beowulf, Gilgamesh, the Bible, the Alien movies, etc...).

Throughout the book, the reader gets the feeling that things are not going well for the predators and Quammen focuses on that at the end of the book. Predators are slowing going extinct, and due to their nature as "keystone species" (species whose small populations control the populations of other animals and fauna in their respective regions) could have an adverse effect on life across the world if they do disappear.

All around, this is a great book.

Highly Recommended!

Read this book if 1) You are interested in animals; 2) You are interested in exotic locales and different cultures; and 3) You have a tough stomach.

"Monster of God" is a fascinating look at dangerous "man-eating" animals throughout the world and how they interact with man. It is also a travelogue written by a man obviously interested in detail, history, culture, and the inner-workings of the human mind.

Lions in India, crocoldiles in Australia, brown bears in Romania, and Siberian Tigers in Siberia are the main animals discussed in the book. I thought, however, the most interesting part was the biography of the Romanian dictator, who killed so many bears for sport. The bears are also the least scary of the predators described (you feel more sorry for them than threatened by them).

This book is loaded with information (sometimes it can get overwelming), and the overall read is fascinating -- including every little gory detail. Probably the most intriguing moment of the entire book is the description of a crocodile attack, as related by a survivor. It gave me chills. I don't think I'll ever forget it.

The main message of "Monster of God" is that even though we fear them and they can kill us, these animals -- all animals, actually -- are important to this world we share. If we are not careful, they will disappear -- and we will have lost so much because of it.

A few years ago, David Quammen wrote a big travel and science book which was a superb explanation of biogeography and island extinctions, _The Song of the Dodo_. Part of the book was about the Komodo dragon, as close to a real dragon as we are likely to see, and like a real dragon, it eats humans from time to time. Animals that eat humans are the subject of his latest science and travel opus, _Monster of God: The Man-Eating Predator in the Jungles of History and the Mind_ (Norton). It is an entertaining and instructive look at the animals that regard us as dinner, the animals at the very top of the food chain. It won't do to include the worms or microbes that will eat us all in the end, nor the malarial mosquito that he reminds us might be considered the most deadly of animals. A few snakes may poison and kill, and elephants and rhinos may trample, and wolves may group together to bring us down. None of these count; they don't individually stalk, attack, and eat humans. This is a book about lions and tigers and bears. And crocodiles, oh, my.

Quammen visited the Gir forest in west India to see the lions. Lions in India? Yes, it is a subspecies closely related to the more familiar African ones. A few hundred lions live in a wildlife sanctuary, but the sanctuary also is home to a people called the Maldharis and their cattle. They do pretty well, rarely getting hurt, and they never use guns or traps. The important lesson here is not only that there has been reserved enough land to support an island of lions, but that they live with people who are determined to coexist with them. Australia has an ongoing program of harvesting crocodiles in the Kakadu National Park. The indigenous people who live there take part in the program, and gain money from it. Croc numbers are up, and human deaths are up, too. But there is a good trade in croc skins for handbags and wallets, and the paws make dandy backscratchers, so the beasts thrive. Brown bears, conspecific with American grizzlies, are doing well in Romania because of fluky bad government. The late and detested dictator Ceausescu kept a department of his government busy feeding bears for him to shoot. The shepherds were the losers; they don't generally have guns, and their sheep are frequent victims of bear attacks (as they themselves less frequently are), but this has been the way for centuries. One of the shepherds explains: bears are a treasure of the forest: "A forest without bears - it's empty." The native Udege people have similarly lived for centuries in harmony with their Siberian tigers. It has been suggested that selling prospective big game hunters the right to kill a couple of tigers a year (there are only a few hundred, dropping fast) might provide financial incentive to protect the habitat. It's a solution, slightly appalling, that has worked elsewhere.

You can tell that Quammen's subject is not really man-eaters, but people. He shows that these top predators have been incorporated into our stories, from _Gilgamesh_ to _Alien_, and into our art and religion. True to his previous work, the fate of these animals is looking grim, despite Quammen's investigation of some various success stories. Large predators all over the world cause loss, terror, and death, but not to all people equally; over and over, it is the poor people in the country who are at risk. But in one example after the other, the poor have come to some understanding with the beasts; there are larger economic forces at play that are going to remove them from the world. They are known as "keystone species", without which the structure of ecosystems will fall. Take them away, and the world gets less dangerous for us, their potential prey, but also less interesting; the niches, Quammen shows, will be filled with squirrels, possums, and rats. Large animals need large spaces to live in, and plenty of meat, and we are increasingly unwilling to let them have their way. Quammen is too good a writer and thinker to allow shrill polemicism into his book, but realizes that we have already lost much of our sense of place in nature. He does write about the predators that are still surviving, but they are anomalies. When the monsters that have been so important to us are gone, we will have lost much more than just big meat-eaters. A forest without bears is empty.

A very insightful and wonderful account of the relations between man and the man-eaters in both myth, mind and memory. The author tackles several subjects in this hands-on accounts. The author looks at traditional `man-eaters' although the word itself disturbs him in his politically correct nature, he looks at the Siberian Tigers, the Lions and even the Bears of Rumania. He looks at the myths surrounding the `man-eaters' and he analyzes the political responses. He tells wonderful tales of the alligators of Australia and weaves a web of intrigue whereby the reader can now distinguish between the truly lethal `man-eaters' and the skinny snouted harmless critters of the inland streams. Many stories are interwoven including vast accounts of the natives who like always seem to live `in harmony' with nature. Only when modern man came along with his weapons and his urban development did the truly viscous kings of the animal kingdom disappear. The only shortcoming is the small amount of room devoted to wolves and sharks, but obviously the book is such a wonderful gem to only so much could be covered, especially since the account is part travel writing.

Seth J. Frantzman

By the time I completed David Quammen's "Monster of God" I had to wonder "who's the predator here"? Of course given half a chance it would be the four animals (Asiatic Lions, European Brown Bears, Saltwater Crocodiles and Siberian Tigers) he covers in his thoughtfully written book but as he points out, along with other naturalists and conservationists, they are not being given half a chance. For me this was a very sobering read and I had to put it down for a couple of weeks before I could bear to finish the last ten pages. There are glimmers of hope sprinkled throughout the book with Mr.Quammen masterfully guiding us through these fragile wild places where these "monsters" are intended to be stalking (us!). The section on the Asiatic lions and the Maldhari people in India, caught in a push-pull situation, was very moving while the Brown Bear section set in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania was chilling. The passages about Ceausescu's "shooting expeditions" are blazed into my memory almost as a metaphor of what man is doing to the whole bloody planet. It isn't the easiest reading style but I felt in very capable hands with Mr. Quammen showing us once more that time is, in fact, running out for these magnificent animals and for us.