This book studies the various definitions of animal nature proposed by nineteenth-century
currents of thought in France. It is based on an examination of a number of key thinkers and
writers some well known (for example Michelet and Lamartine) others largely forgotten (for
example Gleizes and Reynaud). At the centre of the book lies the idea that knowledge of
animals is often knowledge of something else that the primary referentiality is overlaid with
additional levels of meaning. In nineteenth-century France thinking about animals (their future
and their past) became a way of thinking about power relations in society for example about
the status of women and the problem of the labouring classes. This book analyses how animals as
symbols externalize and mythologize human fears and wishes but it also demonstrates that
animals have an existence in and for themselves and are not simply useful counters functioning
within discourse.
