{"product_id":"9780674937369","title":"View to a Death in the Morning","description":"What brought the ape out of the trees, and so the man out of the ape,  was a taste for blood. This is how the story went, when a few fossils  found in Africa in the 1920s seemed to point to hunting as the first  human activity among our simian forebears—the force behind our upright  posture, skill with tools, domestic arrangements, and warlike ways. Why,  on such slim evidence, did the theory take hold? In this engrossing  book Matt Cartmill searches out the origins, and the strange allure, of  the myth of Man the Hunter. An exhilarating foray into cultural history,  A View to a Death in the Morning shows us how hunting has  figured in the western imagination from the myth of Artemis to the tale  of Bambi—and how its evolving image has reflected our own view of  ourselves.A leading biological anthropologist, Cartmill brings  remarkable wit and wisdom to his story. Beginning with the killer-ape  theory in its post–World War II version, he takes us back through  literature and history to other versions of the hunting hypothesis.  Earlier accounts of Man the Hunter, drafted in the Renaissance, reveal a  growing uneasiness with humanity’s supposed dominion over nature. By  delving further into the history of hunting, from its promotion as a  maker of men and builder of character to its image as an aristocratic  pastime, charged with ritual and eroticism, Cartmill shows us how the  hunter has always stood between the human domain and the wild, his  status changing with cultural conceptions of that boundary.Cartmill’s  inquiry leads us through classical antiquity and Christian tradition,  medieval history, Renaissance thought, and the Romantic movement to the  most recent controversies over wilderness management and animal rights.  Modern ideas about human dominion find their expression in everything  from scientific theories and philosophical assertions to Disney movies  and sporting magazines. Cartmill’s survey of these sources offers  fascinating insight into the significance of hunting as a mythic  metaphor in recent times, particularly after the savagery of the world  wars reawakened grievous doubts about man’s place in nature.A masterpiece of humanistic science, A View to a Death in the Morning  is also a thoughtful meditation on what it means to be human, to stand  uncertainly between the wilderness of beast and prey and the peaceable  kingdom. This richly illustrated book will captivate readers on every  side of the dilemma, from the most avid hunters to their most vehement  opponents to those who simply wonder about the import of hunting in  human nature.","brand":"Matt Cartmill","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45803017765182,"sku":"9780674937369","price":1508.0,"currency_code":"ZAR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4357\/7662\/products\/9780674937369_0014db2f-7ce3-42c2-88d8-8d03d794060e.jpg?v=1707308629","url":"https:\/\/exclusivebooks.co.za\/products\/9780674937369","provider":"Exclusive Books Online","version":"1.0","type":"link"}