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by Chelsea Olinger Review of Elephant by Dan Wylie. 2009. London: Reaktion Books. 205 pages. Elephant by Dan Wylie is all about elephants, as the title would imply. Wylie's purpose of writing this book is to give readers a broad look into the history of elephants. He includes information on the physiology of elephants and the way elephants are represented across the world. Wylie also writes about the many uses of elephants and the conservation of elephants. He ends the book with a timeline of elephants from c. 60 million BC to 1989. Wylie was successful with giving his readers a broad look into elephant history. Thanks to the book I now understand more about elephant and human animal interactions and how most of the time it isn't a positive interaction for the elephants. The book also has me wishing I was in a better position to help with the conservation of elephants. Dan Wylie has previously spent about fifteen years researching and publishing on early Zulu history. He is currently a lecturer in the English department at Rhodes University, Grahamstown in South Africa. Wylie has published multiple books and articles, with subjects including ecology, elephants, poetry, and whales. He is best known for a biography on King Shaka. Wylie used an array of secondary sources in his research for this book. He used books ranging in publication years from 1947 to 2005, multiple websites which he accessed from 2006 to 2008, many different academic journals as well, ranging in publication years from 1991 to 2006, as well as using newspaper and magazine articles as sources. Overall, he used a total of 112 sources, ranging in publication from 61 years prior up until the year of his publication of Elephants. Wylie used a topical approach for the layout of his book. Each of the five chapters in Elephant includes a different topic. Chapter one, "Proboscidae", talks about the origins of the elephant, the elephants ancestors, and the evolution of the proboscidae family. Chapter two, "An Astounding Physiology", discusses elephant anatomy, the family structure, and how elephants communicate. Chapter three, "Representing Elephants", is all about the history of elephants in art; such as elephant rock art, folklore, religious iconography, sculptures, paintings, literary appearances, and contemporary pop culture. Chapter four, "Using Elephants", focuses on the utilization of living elephants, such as being used for wars, logging sites, and human entertainment. Chapter five, "Conservation", discusses the ivory trade, elephant reserves, the effect that locals have on elephants, and the loss of elephant habitats. The layout of this book generally works well. I believe Wylie's choice in doing a topical approach to the book was a good idea. With the history of elephants spanning across such a broad range in time, I don't believe that doing a chronological order would of worked well for this book. I really enjoyed how each chapter covered a specific topic that correlates with elephants. The inclusion of approximately 100 images throughout the book adds to the success of it. Wylie chose smartly where to put the images in his book, so that they corresponded with what was being discussed at the time. The images provide visual information, a look back into history, and make the book beautiful to look at. At times the book was a little drawn out, hard to understand, and confusing. Wylie did include some information that seemed to somewhat drag on, making the book at times a little dense. On a few occasions throughout the book, he would use a word that people may not know, and he'll either not define the word, or wait a few pages to really explain the meaning. Every now and then as you read through the book, you'll come to a part that you'll question why it was included where it was. I believe Wylie could have separated chapter five into two chapters; one chapter about conservation and another about the ivory trade. I expected chapter five to be more about elephant reserves or sanctuaries, but it was filled with so much information about the ivory trade. While Wylie did make it seem like the ivory trade was the reason behind elephants needing to be saved, he did point out that there were other reasons behind the decline of elephants. The book was mostly a success, Wylie informed his readers all about the history of elephants. While there were some parts of the book that dragged on a bit due to an overload of information, Wylie did succeed in informing me about elephants, as I had hoped he would. This book was respectful to non-human animals for the most part. I say for the most part because Wylie did have to at times talk about the hunting, killing, and the use of elephants for human animals' pleasure. Readers wouldn't have gotten a full overview of elephant history though if the negative aspects had been left out. The appropriate audience for the book Elephant, would range anywhere in age from high school students to college students, along with individuals who want to learn more about the history of elephants. Author Bio: Chelsea Olinger, is currently enrolled in MSU Mankato through the Scholars Serving Time program while she is incarcerated at Shakopee Women's Prison. She has loved non-human animals since a young age and has had a variety of companion animals throughout her life. Chelsea's favorite non-human animal is the elephant. She is from Mankato, MN and has two children. Chelsea is currently pursuing her AAS degree. Comments are closed.
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