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21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating,yet repulsive..., January 6, 2000
The most inclusive book on this rodent I've ever read.It includes the origin and natural history of the rat,rat behaviour,mans' attempts to eradicate them,rats' links to disease,rat folklore,rats in art and literature,rats in the lab,rats as pets,rat attacks, even recipes for cooked rats(:-P).Don't think I'll be trying any of those.The book has many facts about rats I've seen nowhere else,including this : scientists were able to impregnate a female mus musculus with the semen of a Norway Rat.Attempts to cross rattus norvegicus with rattus rattus have failed. That means that the common house mouse is basically a tiny rat...or that the norway rat is a huge mouse,however you want to look at it.Of course,all this information in a book of less than 300 pages means the book reads like some rivers out west...a mile wide and only 6 inches deep.Furthermore,Mr. Hendrickson uses neither endnotes or footnotes,so if the reader wants to verify the info by consulting the original sources,s/he is SOL.This is most irritating when one is reading the horrific attacks of rats 'swarming'human victims and eating them alive.Behaviour that unusual in an animal that prefers to avoid people begs for better verification,rats being one of the animals that inspires Urban Legends.(At least one story RH repeats was identified as such by Jan Harold Brunvand;the one where two people check into a hotel room,one leaves,when she returns,the second person has vanished,and no one remembers her ...)The author does include an index and a bibliography.And while I do understand that most people would read this book for the horrific elements, I wish the role of the rat as pet had been covered better.Any rat person will tell you that a rat is friendlier than a cat,smarter than a dog,more trainable than a guinea pig or hamster,and cleaner than any of these other animal companions.For that matter,wild norway rats have been tamed and trained by any number of convicts and POWS and other,lonely people forsaken by their human brethren. I gave this book 4 stars out of 5 because I reserve 5 stars for one-in-a-million masterpieces.I took off 1/2 a star for the lack of documentation...use endnotes or footnotes, PLEASE! WARNING:THIS BOOK SHOULD NOT BE PURCHASED BY A PROSPECTIVE RAT OWNER,WITH THE IDEA THAT IF A RECALCITRANT PARENT/SPOUSE/SO READS IT,THEY'LL BECOME ENTHUSIASTIC ABOUT GETTING A RAT! :-)
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A lot of this is way off base, July 18, 2004
A lot of the reviews have focused on how well-researched this book is and while some of the elements are, a lot of them are obviously urban legends or horribly over-exaggerated anecdotes given by people who obviously are not aware of much about rats and are speaking only from fear or cultural stereotypes. I spent a great deal of time examining the points he made about how rats are ferocious, disease-ridden, gluttonous and tend to over-populate their environment and I couldn't help but draw a parallel with humankind and wonder if that is why humans have always held them in such horror - because they hold up a very unflattering mirror to us. Nonetheless, he tends to open up each chapter with horrifying, sensationlistic stories about rats lurking in corners preparing to jump out and eat babies or some other such nonsense whereas anyone who knows anything about rats will tell you that rats much prefer to avoid humans and will not tend to bite unless they are provoked (or you smell like food, because they are remarkably short-sighted) - and being at heart lazy animals, prefer much easier to attain meals than humans, which are much larger than they are. His hysterical listing of the diseases that rats carry is outdated; many of the diseases listed have since been determined to actually be much more frequently carried by other animals, including other rodents that humans find "cute," such as prairie dogs and squirrels (but we don't find mass extermination campaigns against them, do we?). Zoonosis from rodents, in any case, is extremely rare in industrialized countries in the modern era. Overall I was very disappointed in this book - I was hoping for some cold, hard facts and instead I got all the same sort of hysteria and sensationalism I could get reading the Star. The only reason I gave it 3 stars was because there were a few interesting facts in there, and the bibliography is most useful. If you are actually interested in learning about rats, I suggest you look elsewhere.
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6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Facts on Rats, March 29, 2000
I had read an earlier edition of this book and thought the book needed updated. When I bought the recent edition and read it, I was disappointed. The facts are there, but as previously noted, there are no citations. I grow weary of the same old 19th century drawings of rats that appear in this and most other books dealing with rats. I guess real photos just don't look menacing enough. Rats get lots of bad press. These old illustrations just add to it. The book is history, however and these are presented as such. If a book is about rats, all I ask for are illustration that look like rats. The book is a good read. Packed with information, humor and insite, it has a lot to say. The title is very appropriate. With an animal that is as cunning, diverse and adaptable as the Rat, genetic engineering needs to appoach with a bit of caution.
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