Samuel Shaw is an artist, writer and art historian. He teaches at the University of Birmingham. Christopher Plumb is a cultural historian and his first book was The Georgian Menagerie: Exotic Animals in Eighteenth-century London (2015).
Everything you ever wanted to know about zebras can be found right here in black and white in this remarkable book. . . . Part of Reaktion Books' ambitious Animal series, which presents various animals from a natural and cultural history perspective, this exhaustively researched and brilliantly crafted volume is appropriate for college or advanced high school readers. It would be a valuable addition to a classroom library. . . . Profusely illustrated with captivating photographs. -- American Biology Teacher Zebra is neither a book of zoology nor a book on history, though it contains both. Written by a cultural historian and an art historian, it is a ultimately sociocultural history that covers the human interaction with the zebra as both an animal and an icon. The book is about the zebra, but the focus is on humans: how humans discovered the zebra, how we reacted to it, how we've interpreted it, how we've used it. The volume covers ancient art and modern fashion (zebra striped clothing is, for some reason, more commonly made for women), zebras in art, comics, and diplomacy, and zebras as representations of sociological issues. . . . The pictures are small but of good quality and bright. Recommended. -- Choice