It is likely that no animal in human history has been of such great cultural moment as the elephant. Humans and elephants practically co-evolved, and world cultures - even on continents where no actual elephants lived - are replete with religious icons, origin myths, sculptures, paintings and stories involving elephants - they have, for example, been used in warfare to terrify the enemy.

From Disney's Dumbo, to Babar the Elephant, to Horton, in Dr Seuss' "Horton Hatches the Egg", to Ganesh, the Hindu god of wisdom, the elephant has been a symbol of intelligence, strength and fidelity. Aristotle once said the elephant was 'the beast which passeth all others in wit and mind'."Elephant" explores the rich cultural history of the largest and most charismatic - some would say 'most human' - of animals. Dan Wylie also describes the natural history of the elephant, including its three remaining species: the African Bush Elephant, the African Forest Elephant, and the Asian Elephant, as well as its extinct variants, the most well-known of which is probably the woolly mammoth. He looks at the animal's evolution, environment and behaviour, as well as its increasingly endangered status, threatened as it is by human encroachmant on its environment and poaching for ivory and other body parts.

This results in a uniquely poignant conservation situation in the modern world, where both elephants and humans unsustainably consume the increasingly limited ground and resources they live on.Containing many illustrations of elephants around the world from ancient times to the present, and packed with anecdote, myth and legend, "Elephant" will have much to say to all those who admire this noble creature.

Author Biography

Dan Wylie is Associate Professor in English at Rhodes University, South Africa. He is the author of many books and articles, including Myth of Iron: Shaka in History (2006) and Toxic Belonging?: Identity and ecology in Southern Africa (forthcoming 2008).