Pets and their People

Name: Pets and their People
Price: 49.99 AUD
Availability: InStock
ISBN: 9781851246465

Charles Foster

$49.99

Hardback

In stock
Ready to ship

QTY:

English

Bodleian Library
01 April 2026

Cultural studies

We have been domesticating animals for over ten thousand years. Why do we want tame wolves in our homes, subdued wild cats on our laps and snakes draped like scarves around our necks?

This great conversation between the wild and the tame is human history, human psychology, human politics and human sociology. Pets feature in art, poetry and some of our most popular stories. Is it because we ourselves are wild and so we want furry, feathered and scaly wildness in our lives? But on what terms? Have we tamed the wolves, or are wolves wilding us?

Pets and their People looks at the strange rapport between humans and their pets

or pets and their humans

at each stage of our lives. It takes bearings from every era of human history, asking how the special bond between owners and their pets has evolved, and what that evolution tells us about our own changing identity. Do we look to animals as moral

or other

role models? Do pets help us to communicate? Do they teach us about birth and death? Can they show us who we really are?

By: Charles Foster
Imprint: Bodleian Library
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm,
Weight: 454g
ISBN: 9781851246465
ISBN 10: 1851246460
Pages: 208
Publication Date: 01 April 2026
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Charles Foster is a fellow of Exeter College, University of Oxford. His previous books include Being a Beast, The Screaming Sky, and Cry of the Wild: Eight Animals Under Siege.

Reviews for Pets and their People

A brilliant and fascinating book which not only the 60% of us with pets must read but so should the other 40%. John Fletcher, author of A Life for Deer Authoritative, insightful and illuminating. The latest of Foster’s celebrated endeavours to explore what humans are examines the myriad facets of pet-keeping with compassion and humour, reflecting on the role that animal companions are undertaking on our behalf. Dr Sean Wensley author of Through A Vet’s Eyes '...we love our pets, and that is good, as is Dr Foster’s book.' -- John Lewis-Stempel * Books *