PositiveOpen Letters Review\"The Social Lives of Animals...gets off to a rocky start. Not only does Ward indulge in the kind of navel-gazing that whimsy absolutely requires...but he indulges the very signature of whimsy: the inclusion of direct-address \'dear reader\' in non-ironic prose. Fortunately, he mostly gets it out of his system early. The bulk of The Social Lives of Animals turns the focus exactly where it belongs: on the social lives of animals ... all relationship-webs are complex, probably more complex than humans have traditionally credited. Ward aptly describes many examples hinting at this, and many of his cases are strengthened because he’s intentionally chosen animals with bad PR ... Readers who were generally unaware of the extent and complexity of the \'web of relationships\' in nonhuman animals (much less those who were indoctrinated in childhood to believe such relationships are the sole province of humans) will find Ward’s book eye-opening. It’s also more than a little bittersweet, learning so much about how complex our fellow Earthlings are just as we’re herding so many of them into extinction, but although Ward’s tone throughout is one of upbeat, fascinated involvement, it’s thankfully not blithe. Readers will be likewise fascinated by how much we’ve learned.
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