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4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Who Are the Vicious Ones?, April 3, 2006
This review is from: Vicious: Wolves and Men in America (The Lamar Series in Western History) (Hardcover)
It doesn't take one long to realize the title, I believe, doesn't refer to the viciousness of the wolves, but to humans. In a number of instances he reveals the incredible senseless cruelty inflicted upon captured wolves, many times for sheer pleasure and other times to somehow to 'even the score'.
Particularly interesting are the passages on the Mormons and their eradication of the wolves of Utah, which I think backfired in an interesting way, the very tall tales associated with wolves, the turning point toward environmentalism brought about Leopold, and the governmental eradication program in effect until 1950. It's quite interesting to see how the government "propaganda program" drove the eradication effort.
The author makes an interesting remark that there is no record in North America that wolves have ever killed a human. It's probably true, but worth looking into. I've heard this remark before. Perhaps a little Google work, or maybe something is in his bibliography.
There was an interesting section on communications between the Algonquin indians and Europeans settlers that hinged on interaction with wolves, dogs, and other animals. I recently had seen the movie "New World", 2005/6 release, which depicted this communication in a similar way. Perhaps the author had some influence.
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7 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Vicious, but Not Killers of People., June 9, 2005
This review is from: Vicious: Wolves and Men in America (The Lamar Series in Western History) (Hardcover)
As a young girl, I was warned that lecherous old men were "wolves on the prowl." After all, children read about Little Red Riding Hood and the wolf with big teeth. These are only imaginary wolves not the real 'vicious' wild animals.
When the Europeans came to America, there was a goodly population of these creatures, hungry and ferocious as a tiger in a zoo. Wolf legends preceded them and they were forced to migrate to the West because of rampant eradication in the North East. Steeped in myth and symbols, they existed in folklore long before history connected them to humans.
Wolves were territorial and their haunting howls were not as predators but communication 'songs' warning rival groups in search of food to look elsewhere. Wolves had their own reasons for 'singing' -- to prevent the forced eliminaton of each other.
Like the Indians and buffalo, they were forced off their native lands to the wild West to the point of extinction. Exterminated in the rangelands and farming regions of the U. S., the species survived in the upper regions of Alaska and Canada, along the Great Lakes in the East.
Humans are vicious at the core, generating pain and suffering on each other and cause extreme violence to feel "big." People transported their hatred in stories and traditions,not their souls. Humans tortured animals and showed all kinds of nasty behavior. Euro-Americans killed wild animals and transformed habitats. They espoused a climate of public opinion that mixes love, hate, and indifference with savage behavior. Like the buffalo, they became an endangered species, yet they have survived. Some of the Canadian wolves have been transplanted to Yellowstone National Park in Montana.
In the Smoky Mountains, we have the vicious black bears, as dangerous as any wolf who will actually kill humans who find themselves on the wrong hiking trail. Will the uneducated hillfolk of this area decide to exterminate the bear population? People in this large town at the base of the Smokies will spend all day at Cades Cove just to see a real deer. In Middle Tennessee, we have Davy Crockett Park full of deer to enjoy.
But, no one can trust a wolf unless, of course, he is a caged animal in the zoo. Humans are so insecure and must use guns not for protection but to feed their egoes. The painting on the cover shows a group of Puritans huddling together as the big, bad wolf growls, the old woman with a red cloak and the man not aiming his rifle (just pointing at the dangerous predator), reflects how uninformed our ancestors really were and how naive. He looks just like a wolf-hound.
Jon T. Colemen traveled the country, from New England to Utah, stopping in Denver along the way, for his research; this well-researched book began as a doctoral thesis at Yale University. He teaches history at the University of Notre Dame, and helps take care of his children (along with the laundry) as does my son, the astronomer.
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8 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
bad research, bad writing, bad history, January 1, 2009
This review is from: Vicious: Wolves and Men in America (The Lamar Series in Western History) (Hardcover)
I purchased this book a few months ago based on the prestige of the Lamar Series in Western History and Yale University Press. Students of western history know that Yale has one of the most impressive collections of western americana and the Lamar Series in Western History is an outgrowth of the strong primary sources available to historians at this university. The author, Jon T. Coleman is not on the faculty at Yale, but instead teaches history at University of Notre Dame.
I expected a well written, concise, balanced history like some of the other volumes in the series that I have read, but instead found the book to be an unfortunate polemic, with a recitation of one-sided facts that would make most honest historians shudder. The book begins with the author asserting on page 3 in the introduction that there is no record of a non rabid wolf killing a human in North America since the arrival of the Europeans. This is an old saw widely cited by environmentalists who supported the reintroduction of the wolf to the US from Canada in the 1990's, but is not born out by facts.
On March 7th, 1888 at New Rockford in the Dakota Territory as recorded in the Saint Paul Daily Globe, a man and his son were attacked, killed, and eaten by a pack of wolves within yards of their home as the wife watched helpless from the window with an infant in her arms. This is but one example of a long list of known attacks and killings that have been chronicled in newspapers and other primary sources such as personal journals. While the wolves in this instance weren't tested for rabies, biologists cite rabid wolves as working as individuals with healthy wolves moving in packs. This lends credence to the probability that these wolves were in fact healthy when they killed these two people.
One year after the publication of this volume a coroner's inquest in Canada cited an Ontario man's death as a direct incident of an attack by healthy, non-rabid wolves. While happening after the publication date of this volume and therefore not a fact of relevance to the authors assertion at publication in 2004, it would be unique indeed if this were in fact the only incident of such an attack (the prior citation from 1888 aside) in nearly 400 years of European presence in North America.
These facts aside, the book is generally poorly written with not only a significant amount of bias, but with shabby editing as well. The book is presented as a sort of timeline of the interaction of man and wolf since colonial times, but the author wanders aimlessly, referring without clear reference to events found forward and backward in the book with no contextual support. While repeatedly referring to an event can be an effective mechanism for emphasis, this happens a number of times on a number of topics indicating a more rambling mindset and weak editing instead of an effective use of a literary mechanism. The book is at times difficult to read simply because it suffers from a lack of sufficient editing. A more concise, linear approach to the facts would have built a more credible story.
The author's inability to control his bias and attend to his professional duties as a historian is clear in statements like the one found on pages 225-227 referring to a man in Montana who killed one of the reintroduced wolves identified as R-10. He begins by saying "Chad McKitrrick, an underemployed lover of guns, beer, and bear hunting..." which he later follows with the statement "McKittrick collected mementos of power. R-10's skull entered a stockpile of masculine totems -- guns, skins, and antlers -- that helped a small man feel big".
The author does not state that he ever met or interviewed the man, nor does he claim specific credentials in human psychology, but he is more than willing to level invectives against the man, describing him as "small". While McKittrick may indeed be such a man, there is no independent substantiation of this and unfortunately this is not an isolated incident. The book is full of similar bias and invective and in reality can hardly be called history at all.
To his credit, the author has done what at first blush would appear to be a sufficient amount of research. The bibliography at the end of the book is replete with references to a number of excellent historical works. Regrettably however, most are secondary rather than primary sources. Had the author done more primary research he might have found the numerous references available on wolf attacks on humans cited in 19th and 20th century newspapers.
Even the selection of images is unbalanced. Numerous photos are included of wolves in traps, and wolf carcasses in piles built by bounty hunters. No photos are included showing examples of wolf predation of livestock and wildlife. He describes each incident of killing wolves with terms such as "horrid" and "ghastly". Perhaps the author has never seen killing. The act of taking a life is in fact inherently violent, but attaching such bias laden adjectives to the act does little to build a credible historical argument.
Ultimately, the book can neither be considered history, or balanced and scholarly. If you are looking for such a volume, look elsewhere. If you are looking for a sourcebook to support the view that man is a vicious killer who eradicated wolves to serve his economic interests and ease his unfounded fears then this is your book.
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