New Books in Animal Studies

The assumption that only humans can engage in politics—that only
humans are 'zoon politikon'—is foundational to the Western tradition of
political philosophy. While there is increasing recognition of animals'
moral status (both within moral philosophy and at the level of public
opinion), animals are not recognized as political subjects. This
carefully researched but accessibly written volume—following on from the
authors' earlier book Zoopolis—argues that animals too have a
right to politics: a right to be recognized as political subjects and
agents, and as members of political communities entitled to collective
self-determination. ⁠Animals and the Right to Politics⁠
(Oxford University Press, 2026) draws on recent scientific work on
animal societies, cultures, and decision-making, as well as recent work
by political theorists rethinking ideas of agency and
community—especially the significance of emplaced and embodied
encounters and relationships to the activity of politics. Sue Donaldson
and Will Kymlicka draw a picture of what it would mean to create spaces
and practices, not only for politics conducted by humans on behalf of
animals, but also politics with and by animals on their own terms. It
then explores how this approach could inform a wide range of
contemporary debates in human-animal relations, including wildlife
conservation, urban planning, and animal labour.

⁠Sue Donaldson⁠
is a Canadian author and animal advocate. She has published more than
40 academic articles, and is the co-author, with Will Kymlicka, of Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights
(Oxford University Press, 2011) which won the Canadian Philosophical
Association Book Prize in 2013, and has been translated into 11
languages. She is co-convenor of the Animals in Philosophy, Politics,
Law and Ethics research group at Queen's University, Kingston, Canada.

⁠Will Kymlicka⁠ is the author of seven books published by Oxford University Press, including Contemporary Political Philosophy (2nd ed., 2001), Multicultural Citizenship (1996), and Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights
(co-authored with Sue Donaldson; 2011). He is currently the Canada
Research Chair in Political Philosophy at Queen's University, a Fellow
of the Royal Society of Canada and of the Canadian Institute for
Advanced Research, an Officer of the Order of Canada, and a
Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. His works have been
translated into 34 languages.

⁠Kyle Johannsen⁠ is Sessional Faculty Member in the Department of Philosophy at Trent University. His most recent authored book is Wild Animal Ethics: The Moral and Political Problem of Wild Animal Suffering (Routledge, 2021).
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For
more than 10,000 years, cats have prowled at the edges of human life.
But, starting only a few decades ago, hundreds of millions of them
became pets. In Cats: A History
(Johns Hopkins University Press, 2026), Professor Rod Phillips shares a
sweeping cultural and social history of felines, tracing their shifting
place across societies and centuries, from ancient Egypt's revered
hunters to Europe's suspected familiars of witches and from shipboard
rodent controllers to cherished internet icons.

Professor
Phillips illustrates how cats have always occupied spaces both familiar
and mysterious and how their perceived independence and disruptive
nature—and their associations with women, the supernatural, and
outsiders—have shaped humans' attitudes toward these fascinating
creatures. Cats have been lauded as companions and vermin-killers,
reviled as threats to moral and ecological order, and cherished for the
very qualities that make them hard to control. This richly textured
portrait of cats explores their significance in religion, politics,
gender, literature, warfare, and pop culture. It also provides profound
insights into our relationships with other animals, especially dogs and
rodents.

The many roles that cats have played throughout history
illuminate a variety of contradictions in humans' perceptions of them:
as affectionate yet aloof, adorable
and evil, ordinary and exceptional. This book is the definitive story
of the feline presence in human history—an elegant study of how we live
with animals whom we see as living by their own rules.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book
focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty
negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative
analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find
Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. 
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Anyone
alive today is among a tiny fraction of the once living: over 90% of
species that ever existed are now extinct. How did we come to think of
ourselves as survivors in a world where species can vanish forever, or
as capable of pushing our planet to the verge of a sixth mass
extinction?

Extinction, Professor Sadiah Qureshi shows us, is a surprisingly modern concept—and a phenomenon that’s
not as natural as we might think. In Europe until the late eighteenth
century, species were considered perfect and unchanging creations of
God. Then in the age of revolutions, scientists gathered enough fossil
evidence to determine
that mammoth bones, for example, were not just large elephants but a
lost species that once roamed the Earth alongside ancient humans.
Extinction went from being regarded as theologically dangerous to
pervasive, and even inevitable.

Yet Vanished: An Unnatural History of Extinction (Penguin, 2025) shows us that extinction is more than a scientific idea; it’s
a political choice that has led to devasting consequences. Europeans
and Americans quickly used the notion that extinction was a natural
process to justify persecution and genocide, predicting that nations
from Newfoundland’s Beothuk to Aboriginal Australians were doomed to die
out from imperial expansion.

Exploring the tangled and unnatural histories of extinction and empire, Vanished
weaves together pioneering original research and breath-taking
storytelling to show us extinction is both an evolutionary process and a
human act: one which illuminates our past, and may alter our future.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book
focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty
negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative
analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find
Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.
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Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/animal-studies

Today, rats are nearly synonymous with plague, but this association is surprisingly recent. For centuries, plague devastated populations without being linked to animals. So how did the rat become the symbol of one of history's deadliest diseases? In How Plague Got Rats: Mastering a Zoonotic Pandemic (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2026), Professor Christos Lynteris unravels this story by focusing on the Third Plague Pandemic, a global outbreak that began in China in the 1850s and claimed an estimated 15 million lives by the mid-twentieth century.

This was the first major pandemic recognized by scientists as
zoonotic—spread from animals to humans—and it marked a turning point in both medical science and global health. Through a gripping historical investigation, Professor Lynteris explores how rats entered the medical imagination of the time. He reveals how scientific thinking about disease vectors evolved in tandem with colonial power structures as plague responses unfolded across Asia, Africa, and the Americas. From laboratory discoveries to imperial
interventions, the rat became central not just to understanding plague, but to shaping new forms of epidemiological reasoning.

This provocative book shows how zoonosis emerged as a politically charged concept in the context of empire and pandemic crisis. It is a powerful history of how science, society, and colonialism converged around a creature now inseparable from the story of epidemic disease.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book
focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty
negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.
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Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/animal-studies

South Asian Animal Divination: A Critical Anthology (Brill, 2025) examines the history and practice of animal omen divination in South Asia, comparing it to similar traditions in Mesopotamia and classical antiquity. It provides critical editions and translations of relevant texts, focusing on the interpretation of bird calls and behaviour. The study incorporates ornithological and natural historical information to enhance the understanding of the omens and their regional origins. Furthermore, it explores the evolution of omen literature and the transmission of knowledge across cultures and time periods, highlighting the enduring significance of sound and direction in divination practices.
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