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Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals Paperback – October 16, 2007

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John Gray (Author)
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3.5 out of 5 stars 76 customer reviews
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Product Details

  • Paperback: 272 pages
  • Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 1st edition (October 16, 2007)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0374270937
  • ISBN-13: 978-0374270933
  • Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.6 x 8.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (76 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #134,774 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 starsThe folly of the human animal
By Autonomeus on February 8, 2004
Format: Hardcover
John Gray was once upon a time an optimistic liberal. He fell under the spell of the Gospel of the Free Market in the Thatcherite 1980s, and thus made a transition to conservatism. When he discovered that Thatcherism/Reaganism wasn't really conservative at all, but rather a dogmatic radicalism, he became an old-school conservative. He proceeded to reject the Enlightenment tout court, and embraced post-modernist relativism. Now, he has taken a further step into simple misanthropy. Gray has written a jeremiad against Christianity, the Enlightenment, science, and any hope of bettering people or the planet we live on. This is a performative contradiction, of course, because if there is no cause for hope, why write a book? What's the point? Fame and money are the only reasons left, one must suppose, and that supposition is perfectly consistent with Gray's line of argument -- all lofty ideals and dreams are illusions.

Despite all that, I enjoyed the book and recommend it. It's a quick, easy read, quite entertaining, and I'm sure you can find it in the library. There are many useful citations in the back to more substantial books you might want to read to pursue Gray's points, many made in the form of sound-bite one-liners. Depending on what you bring to it, you may or may not find it shocking -- STRAW DOGS is mainly based on the growing knowledge from the field variously known as sociobiology or evolutionary psychology or biological anthropology. Humans are animals, not demigods. Gray's second main point I think is less appreciated and more important, and that is the evidence that the human species is embarked on a neomalthusian experiment -- overshoot the ecosystem and see what happens.Read more ›
5 Comments 158 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
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5.0 out of 5 starsWe cannot make the world to be for us.
By Bruno on October 12, 2005
Format: Paperback
It is over a hundred years since Darwin revealed to us our animal lineage, and yet the human primate is still having difficulty coming to terms with its animal origins. All bar creationists may indeed now accept that we are descended from apes, but most of us still cling to the belief that we have somehow become different to the rest of the animal kingdom. Our ability to use language and reason, to see ourselves as selves, selves that move forward in time and, with other selves, progress by building a culture based on moral rules and a technology that seems to give us ever increasing control over our environment. Surely this is enough to set us apart from the rest of nature? No. Thankfully, a British philosopher who lives and breathes today but who speaks with the depth and clarity of a modern day Schopenhauer is here to rid you of this delusion.

Human beings are still animals claims Gray, but the more profound insight that he delivers, and that his critics seem unable to grasp or admit, is that humans, and even whatever intelligence that might emerge in a 'posthuman' future, will always be inescapably rooted in the natural world as much as the lowliest of slime molds.

We believe that language and reason are what differentiates us, forgetting that we acquired these abilities through the blind mechanisms of evolution. This means that they are, as Hume, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche declared long before Darwin, mere tools in the brutish struggle for survival. These same tools enabled the human animal to create the illusions of free will, self and morality and the delusion to think that with these, man has the ability to stand apart from the animal world and choose his own fate. But the fundamental import of Darwinism is that it tells us that 'we' were 'made' for the world.Read more ›
3 Comments 69 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
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5.0 out of 5 starsAn anguished plea
By Stephen A. Haines HALL OF FAME on November 6, 2003
Format: Hardcover
John Gray concludes his book with a tragic entreaty: "Can we not think of the aim of life as simply to see?" His plea for awareness reveals the cloak of obscuratism our mythology has draped over all nature. Reading Straw Dogs is like being abruptly roused from a pleasant dream. "Wake and shake!", he cries. Wake up to the falsity of the dogmas under which you live. Shake them off and recognize that we live within reality's domain, not that of phantasms and fables. These ideas disturb the comfortable, yet offer little comfort to those seeking an easy answer to life's challenges. Gray understands our need for solace, but he knows reality isn't a tourist resort. Nature is a harsh realm and he wishes us to confront enduring questions honestly. Writing this book means he thinks we can do that.
Gray's thesis relies on aknowledging our place in the realm of nature. We are, he reminds us, merely a part of the animal kingdom. We are neither a special creation nor particularly unique. Writing alone, with the continuity it provides, sets us apart while granting significant powers. The "continuity" led to the notion of human "progress" and "perfectability". In an evolutionary sense both ideas are false, and we are evolution's product. Even humanism, supposedly rational and secular, has fallen into the trap of seeking "perfectability". Gray finds this misleading and self-serving. He examines the work of Western philosophers, the guides to our thinking, finding them mistaken or misleading. In today's milieu, Lovelock's Gaia concept of the whole planet acting like a single organism, should be reconsidered. Whether the details of this idea are valid is irrelevant.Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 starsThis book is garbage. John Gray is very well read

This book is garbage.

John Gray is very well read, particularly in philosophy. It is therefore so surprising that he comes up with such poor arguments. Read more

Published 13 hours ago by Savvy Shopper 17
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

Great book

Published 2 months ago by Prometheus
5.0 out of 5 starsA must buy

Probably the best book i have read. You will return to read from it again and again and again. Not kidding

Published 3 months ago by Nisheeth
1.0 out of 5 starsEven if you agree with Gray's conclusions, you may be disappointed...

So that you don’t disregard my negative review, I need to specify right up front that I agree with most of John Gray’s conclusions. Read more

Published 7 months ago by Jack McKever
4.0 out of 5 starsFour Stars

Good read

Published 9 months ago by HoBo
2.0 out of 5 starsI say it's spinach

About halfway through this, and have checked the index for Ernest Becker's name. It's missing. This rather trivially covers some of the same ground as Becker's "The Denial of... Read more

Published 11 months ago by Professor R.
4.0 out of 5 starsThe book is very confronting. It makes you think ...

The book is very confronting. It makes you think deeply on a number of generally accepted thoughts and concepts. Truly challenging.

Published 12 months ago by Leo Kestens
4.0 out of 5 starsGray is brilliant and mordantly delightful

In his manner, Gray is brilliant and mordantly delightful. He is not without an agenda and props up his humanistic target only to bare its bones. Read more

Published 13 months ago by Really a Reader
5.0 out of 5 starsSTRAW DOGS IS MY BIBLE

Straw Dogs is my bible. I sleep with it under my pillow. I agree with John Gray so much. I am now reading "The Soul of the Marionette" also by John Gray. Read more

Published 13 months ago by Robert F Gabriel
5.0 out of 5 starsSome people can't handle the truth about humans!

Gray's ideas challenge the core conceits and arrogance of humans, so we're confronted with the ecological, ethical, and social folly of us believing we're superior to and better... Read more

Published 13 months ago by C.F.G.

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