“No one who loves elephants or how humans interact with wildlife should pass up Jacob Shell’s remarkable book.” —Dan Flores, author of Coyote America Giants of the Monsoon Forest journeys deep into the mountainous rainforests of Burma and India to explore the world of teak logging elephants and their intriguing alliance with humans. Jacob Shell’s narrative vividly depicts elephants’ extraordinary intelligence, and the complicated bond with individual human riders, a partnership that can last for decades. Giants of the Monsoon Forest reveals an unexpected relationship between evolution in the natural world and political struggles in the human one, while considering how Asia’s secret forest culture might offer a way to help protect the fragile spaces both elephants and humans need to survive.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK The remarkable story of James Howard “Billy” Williams, whose uncanny rapport with the world’s largest land animals transformed him from a carefree young man into the charismatic war hero known as Elephant Bill In 1920, Billy Williams came to colonial Burma as a “forest man” for a British teak company. Mesmerized by the intelligence and character of the great animals who hauled logs through the jungle, he became a gifted “elephant wallah.” In Elephant Company, Vicki Constantine Croke chronicles Williams’s growing love for elephants as the animals provide him lessons in courage, trust, and gratitude. Elephant Company is also a tale of war and daring. When Japanese forces invaded Burma in 1942, Williams joined the elite British Force 136 and operated behind enemy lines. His war elephants carried supplies, helped build bridges, and transported the sick and elderly over treacherous mountain terrain. As the occupying authorities put a price on his head, Williams and his elephants faced their most perilous test. Elephant Company, cornered by the enemy, attempted a desperate escape: a risky trek over the mountainous border to India, with a bedraggled group of refugees in tow. Part biography, part war epic, Elephant Company is an inspirational narrative that illuminates a little-known chapter in the annals of wartime heroism. Praise for Elephant Company “This book is about far more than just the war, or even elephants. This is the story of friendship, loyalty and breathtaking bravery that transcends species. . . . Elephant Company is nothing less than a sweeping tale, masterfully written.”—Sara Gruen, The New York Times Book Review “Splendid . . . Blending biography, history, and wildlife biology, [Vicki Constantine] Croke’s story is an often moving account of [Billy] Williams, who earned the sobriquet ‘Elephant Bill,’ and his unusual bond with the largest land mammals on earth.”—The Boston Globe “Some of the biggest heroes of World War II were even bigger than you thought. . . . You may never call the lion the king of the jungle again.”—New York Post “Vicki Constantine Croke delivers an exciting tale of this elephant whisperer–cum–war hero, while beautifully reminding us of the enduring bonds between animals and humans.”—Mitchell Zuckoff, author of Lost in Shangri-La and Frozen in Time
"Modes of transportation understood, by political regimes in different times and places, as intrinsically useful for clandestine movement, subversive mobility, and smuggling for revolt. Contents: Chapters look at canal transportation, several types of animal transportation (mules, elephants, camels and sled-dogs are all treated at some length), and inner-city freight-carrying infrastructure"--Provided by publisher.
Elephant tourism is a growing activity in many countries across Asia and Africa and is popular with tourists from all parts of the world. Elephant tourism has grown rapidly, providing the only viable way for elephants and their owners to survive since the banning of logging. Old logging camps have been developed into sanctuaries for some elephants, but many other camps were established as entertainment centres, resulting in serious welfare issues for the elephants and their mahouts. The profits from elephant tourism in Asia have encouraged African operators to follow a similar business model. This book draws attention to the need for a comprehensive and rigorous focus on local solutions to improve the welfare of captive elephants, their mahouts and local residents, and to enhance tourists' experiences of elephant tourism.
Elephants are a keystone species and have been a part of the magic of the thickly forested land of South Africa for millennia. This book focuses on the history and work of Knysna Elephant Park, a leading South African elephant research facility that has been home to more than 40 elephants in 25 years. Unfortunately, all the mystique of the Knysna elephant has been reduced to a single elephant left alive. Exploring a wide range of topics, this book covers the impact of elephants' interactions with tourists, how they recover from trauma and even their relevance in human healthcare. Renowned elephant researchers explain the majesty of the elephant brain, which has the largest temporal lobe devoted to communication, language, spatial memory and cognition. To this effect, the book emphasizes the threat of poaching to these gentle giants, which has almost forced them to extinction. Perhaps if humans pay attention to how elephants symbolize our relationship with nature, we can learn important lessons about humanity itself.
How to dwell in a forest alongside giants, avoid disturbing a living god, assist an animal with their manners, and help an elephant cross the road. The Presence of Elephants is an anthropological consideration of coexistence, grounded in people’s everyday interactions with Asian elephants. Drawing on two years of ethnographic fieldwork in Assam, Northeast India, this book examines human–elephant copresence and how minds, tasks, identities, and places are shared between the two species. Sharing lives and landscapes with such formidable beings is a continuously shifting and negotiated exchange inherently composed of tensions, asymmetries, and uncertainties – especially in the Anthropocene when breakdowns in communication increasingly have a violent effect. Developing a multifaceted picture of human–elephant relations in a postcolonial setting, each chapter focuses on a different dimension of encounter, where elephants adapt to human norms, people are subject to elephant projects, and novel interspecies possibilities emerge at the threshold of nature and society. Vulnerability is a common experience intensified in contemporary human–elephant relations, felt through the elephant’s power to disrupt and transform human lives, as well as the risks these endangered animals are exposed to. This book will be of interest to scholars of multispecies ethnography and human–animal relations, environmental humanities, conservation, and South Asian studies.
A profound truth of the wild, and the world at large, is that we are a part of it, not owners of it. Is there any animal we love and hate as much as the Royal Bengal Tiger? Tigers are feared and poached, but they also endure, becoming pin-ups for candlelight marches. Indian elephants are trapped by railway lines and fences, but are reclaiming their bodies and colonizing new areas in central India. And in our dirty cities, the sparkling Plain Tiger Butterfly flourishes as one of our last links to wildlife. Wild animals exist beyond our control. They are harmless, only occasionally dangerous. They live with us, or in spite of us. Those who know them understand that wild animals require acceptance for what they are, not enslavement for what we want them to be. In this book, we meet fifteen iconic Indian species in need of conservation and heart. The author explores what these creatures need, and how they exert agency and decision-making. With an equal emphasis on human and animal, science and skilled prose, Wild and Wilful reveals the magic of the wild in our daily lives. It will take you from fear to wonder.
The importance of the Eastern markets to European commerce has long been recognised, and since the famous Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope at the close of the fifteenth century, and the Portuguese occupied Malacca and established factories or trade depots in Burmah at Martaban and Syriam, the trade of Western China and Indo-China has been a prize which has attracted the commercial aspirations of every maritime mercantile community in Europe. In 1613, the Portuguese were ousted from Burmah, and six years later, the English and Dutch established factories in that country. Some years afterwards the Dutch were expelled, and in the middle of the next century the French became our rivals for a short time. In 1756 the chief of their factory was executed, and their factory was destroyed, never to be resuscitated. The first Englishman whose name is recorded in history as travelling in Siam and the Shan States is Thomas Samuel, who happened to be at Zimmé when that place was recaptured by the Burmese in 1615. In Purchas’s ‘Pilgrims’ it is related that he had proceeded from Siam to Zimmé “to discover the trade of that country.” From that time to 1687, when the English were turned out of Siam for killing some of the natives in a scuffle, many English merchants resided there. Whilst the coast of Burmah was under native dominion, our traders had to content themselves with travelling along the great rivers; and it was not until 1829, three years after we had annexed the Burmese provinces of Tenasserim and Arakan, that steps were taken by us to establish overland trade with Northern Siam, the Shan States, and China. In that year Lord William Bentinck, the Governor-General of India, ordered a mission to proceed, under Dr Richardson, from Maulmain to the Siamese Shan States, to ensure friendly relations and trade in that direction; and in 1837, Lord Auckland, then Governor-General, despatched Captain (late General) MacLeod, viâ Zimmé and Kiang Hung to China, with the view of opening up trade with that country. Notwithstanding the favourable reports of these and subsequent missions, and the frequent petitions of our mercantile community asking for the connection of Burmah with China by railway, no action has been taken by the Indian Government in the sixty years that have elapsed since Dr Richardson’s mission, for improving the overland routes leading from Burmah to the great undeveloped markets which immediately border our possessions on the east. Burmah might as well have remained for these sixty years in native hands, for all the good that its acquisition has been to the furtherance of our trade with the neighbouring regions. When I retired from Government service at the end of 1879, the French were again in the field. They had annexed the south-eastern corner of Indo-China, had seized Cambodia from the Siamese, were determined to wrest Tonquin from China, which they have since succeeded in doing, and had openly avowed their intention to eject British trade from Eastern Indo-China, and to do all they possibly could to attract the trade of South-western, Southern, and Central China to French ports in Tonquin, where prohibitive duties could be, and have since been, placed upon British goods. It was under these circumstances that Mr Colquhoun and I took up the question, placed the necessity of connecting India with Burmah, Siam, and China before the public, and with the aid of the mercantile community determined to carry out a series of exploration-surveys to prove whether or not Burmah could be connected with these countries by railway at a reasonable expense, and to select the best route, financially and commercially, for the undertaking. The present volume deals with my exploration-surveys in Siam and the Shan States.
The Routledge Companion to Northeast India is a trans-disciplinary and comprehensive compendium of a vital yet under-researched region in South Asia. It provides a unique guide to prevailing themes, theories, arguments, and history of Northeast India by discussing its life-forms – human and not – languages, landscapes, and lifeways in all its diversity and difference. The companion contains authoritative entries from leading specialists from and on the region and offers clear, concise, and illuminating explanations of key themes and ideas. A hands-on, practical, and comprehensive guide to Northeast India, this companion fills a significant gap in the literature and will be an invaluable teaching, learning, and research resource for scholars and students of Northeast India Studies, South Asian and Southeast Asian societies, culture, politics, humanities, and the social sciences in general.
