A perfect harmony

the long version

What would today's world be like if man had not domesticated animals? This is the question that celebrated animal expert Roger Caras explores in A Perfect Harmony. A fascinating and colorful combination of history, anthropology, and personal experience, the book examines animal species both familiar and exotic in order to illustrate their monumental impact on the development of civilization. Accessible, absorbing, and wonderfully appealing, A Perfect Harmony illuminates a vital but virtually ignored aspect of human history: the partnership between man and domestic animals through the ages. At the dawn of civilization, Caras asserts, man alone was unable to take the giant steps necessary to achieve our current levels of technology and sophistication. But at each stage in our cultural evolution, he writes, domesticated animals enabled us to move on to the next level. The extent of our dependence upon these animals -- which have provided us with food, clothes, shelter, and means of transport -- is beyond calculation. By turns wicked and wry, passionate and poignant, Caras illustrates how every domesticated animal from the reindeer to the silkworm has provided some valuable service to its human masters and has, in many cases, altered the course of history. - Jacket flap.