Elephants and Kings

An Environmental History

Thomas R. Trautmann

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English

Chicago University Press
03 August 2015

History; Asian history; Animals & society; Social & cultural anthropology; Conservation of wildlife & habitats

Because of their enormous size, elephants have long been irresistible for kings as symbols of their eminence. In early civilizations—such as Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Indus Civilization, and China—kings used elephants for royal sacrifice, spectacular hunts, public display of live captives, or the conspicuous consumption of ivory—all of them tending toward the elephant’s extinction. The kings of India, however, as Thomas R. Trautmann shows in this study, found a use for elephants that actually helped preserve their habitat and numbers in the wild: war.

Trautmann traces the history of the war elephant in India and the spread of the institution to the west—where elephants took part in some of the greatest wars of antiquity—and Southeast Asia (but not China, significantly), a history that spans 3,000 years and a considerable part of the globe, from Spain to Java. He shows that because elephants eat such massive quantities of food, it was uneconomic to raise them from birth. Rather, in a unique form of domestication, Indian kings captured wild adults and trained them, one by one, through millennia. Kings were thus compelled to protect wild elephants from hunters and elephant forests from being cut down. By taking a wide-angle view of human-elephant relations, Trautmann throws into relief the structure of India’s environmental history and the reasons for the persistence of wild elephants in its forests.

By: Thomas R. Trautmann
Imprint: Chicago University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 22mm, Width: 14mm, Spine: 2mm
Weight: 482g
ISBN: 9780226264363
ISBN 10: 022626436X
Pages: 304
Publication Date: 03 August 2015
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Primary , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Thomas R. Trautmann is professor emeritus of history and anthropology at the University of Michigan. He is the author of many books, including Dravidian Kinship, Lewis Henry Morgan and the Invention of Kinship, Aryans and British India, and India: Brief History of a Civilization.

Reviews for Elephants and Kings: An Environmental History

"""With substantial and wide-ranging scholarship, Trautmann lucidly presents the elephant's history in India, illuminating the important role of the war elephant and its powerful links to Indian kingship. The result is a unique and original work."" (Rachel Dwyer, author of Bollywood's India)"