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Subject of the Month: 2025

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September's Subject of the Month

Jeheskel (Hezy) Shoshani Library Endowed Collection

Selector: Ida Martinez

Since 2002, Wayne State Library has held and developed the Jeheskel (Hezy) Shoshani Library Endowed Collection (formerly known as the Elephant Research Foundation Library). This month, we are highlighting this special collection to coincide with an exhibit on the first floor of the Purdy Library. 

Brief History

The collection started with books exclusively about elephants. In 1977, Hezy Shoshani started a non-profit called the Elephant Research Foundation and began building a library. In 2002, the library was transferred to Wayne State. In 2020, the collection's benefactor approved an expansion to the scope of the collection to include other areas of interest to Shoshani, such as books on animal conservation, endangered species, human-animal relationships, paleontology, and more.

Selected Titles from the Collection about Elephants, Mammoths, and Mastodons

Behemoth: The History of Elephants in America

In the two hundred years since their arrival in America, elephants have worked on farms, mills, mines, and railroads, in Hollywood, and in professional baseball. They've contributed to the national discourse on civil rights, immigration, politics, and capitalism. In this book, Ronald B. Tobias has written the first comprehensive history of the elephant in America. As tragic as it is comic, this enthralling chronicle traces this animal's indelible footprint on American culture.

Behaviour, Ecology and Conservation of the Asian Elephant: A Decade with Elephants in Rajai's Kingdom

Readers of this book will be introduced to typical behaviours and ecological aspects of Asian elephants in the Rajaji National Park and its adjoining protected habitats. This document further highlights the man-elephant conflict in northern India, conservation threats and challenges to elephants and some recommendations regarding to minimization of this severe dilemma. This book will be of interest to all those interested in elephant research, wildlife sciences & conservation biology and also to those interested in nature, eco-tourism and related issues. 

Conflict, Negotiation, and Coexistence: Rethinking Human-Elephant Relations in South Asia

In South Asia, human-elephant relationships resonate with cultural significance. From the importance of elephants in ancient texts to the role of mahouts over centuries, from discussions on de-extinction to accounts of intimate companionship, the essays in this book reveal the various dynamics of the relationship between two intelligent social mammals.

Earth to Sky: Among Africa's Elephants, a Species in Crisis

Nichols, a longtime photographer for National Geographic as well as the magazines editor-at-large for photography, worked with elephants for decades. In this book he tells their story through images that bring us directly into their habitats, lush forests and open savannas, or stark landscapes ravaged by human intervention to observe the animals daily engagements and activities. Nichols' photographs are accompanied here by the words of such celebrated figures in the field of conservation as Iain Douglas-Hamilton, J. Michael Fay, Peter Matthiessen, Cynthia Moss, David Quammen, and many others.

The Elephant Complex: Travels in Sri Lanka

Gimlette travels to Sri Lanka after it emerged from twenty-six years of civil war. Delving deep into the nation's story, Gimlette provides us with a multifaceted portrait of the island today. His adventures include visiting the dry zones where the island's 5,800 wild elephants congregate around ancient reservoirs. In the course of his journey, Gimlette meets farmers, war heroes, ancient tribesmen, world-class cricketers, terrorists, a former president, old planters, and survivors of great massacres.

Elephant Don: The Politics of a Pachyderm Posse

O'Connell, one of the leading experts on elephant communication and social behavior, offers a rare inside look at the social world of African male elephants. Elephant Don tracks Greg and his group of bulls as O'Connell tries to understand the vicissitudes of male friendship, power struggles, and play.

Elephant Sense and Sensibility: Behavior and Cognition

A comprehensive treatment of the full range of elephant behavior. Beginning with chapters on evolution and the elephant's brain, this book is an integrated presentation of the elephant's capacity for memory, morality, emotion, empathy, altruism, language, intelligence, learning and teaching. Grounded primarily in scientific research, the book also draws upon anecdotal and visual evidence showing elephants thinking, acting, feeling and behaving in ways that we, as humans, recognize.

Elephant Talk: The Surprising Science of Elephant Communication

Since the 1990s, scientists have gathered significant data on elephant "talk." Biologists have determined that elephants use a complex system of communication of at least ten distinct sounds, combined in many variations. Researchers are now asking: what do these sounds mean? As scientists study the elephant sounds that humans can hear, they are also identifying ways elephants communicate through nonverbal behaviors and making sounds too low for human ears.

Elephant Treaties: The Colonial Legacy of the Biodiversity Crisis

Based on a legal history of international biodiversity treaties from the late nineteenth century to the present, Adam argues that today's biodiversity crisis is rooted in European colonial history, especially in the conservation treaties that the colonial powers negotiated to protect Africa's big-game animals. Reflecting on the colonial past, particularly on efforts to manage the commerce in elephant ivory, Adam sheds light on why more recent attempts to arrest the decline in biodiversity by way of international agreement have failed.

Elephants: A Cultural and Natural History

Traces the history of elephants, describes their behavior and characteristics, and looks at their influence on various cultures.

Elephants and Kings: An Environmental History

Because of their enormous size, elephants have long been irresistible for kings as symbols of their eminence. In early civilizations kings used elephants for royal sacrifice, spectacular hunts, public display of live captives, or the conspicuous consumption of ivory -- all of them tending toward the elephant's extinction. The kings of India, however, found a use for elephants that actually helped preserve their habitat and numbers in the wild: war. Trautmann traces the history of the war elephant in India and the spread of the institution to the west, where elephants took part in some of the greatest wars of antiquity, a history that spans 3,000 years and a considerable part of the globe.

Elephants, Economics and Ivory

Ivory is big business, and in some parts of Africa elephants have been hunted almost to extinction in the quest for it. The losses to African economies have been catastrophic. Now there is an international ban on the trade and conservation is the principal goal. The authors of this book have looked at the overall statistics, including those for countries where the elephant population is stable. They show how the careful management of elephants as a resource can best serve African interests. 

Elephants on the Edge: What Animals Teach Us About Humanity

Drawing on accounts from around the world, and on research in neuroscience, psychology, and animal behavior, Bradshaw explores the minds, emotions, and lives of elephants. Wars, starvation, mass culls, poaching, and habitat loss have reduced elephant numbers from more than ten million to a few hundred thousand, leaving orphans bereft of the elders who would normally mentor them. As a consequence, traumatized elephants have become aggressive against people, other animals, and even one another; their behavior is comparable to that of humans who have experienced genocide, other types of violence, and social collapse.

Elephants: Up Close and Personal

This book focuses on the history and work of Knysna Elephant Park, a leading South African elephant research facility that has been home to more than 40 elephants in 25 years. The book emphasizes the threat of poaching to these gentle giants, which has almost forced them to extinction.

Entertaining Elephants: Animal Agency and the Business of the American Circus

How the lives and labors of nineteenth-century circus elephants shaped the entertainment industry. Susan Nance examines elephant behavior--drawing on the scientific literature of animal cognition, learning, and communications--to offer a study of elephants as actors (rather than objects) in American circus entertainment between 1800 and 1940.

First Floridians and Last Mastodons: The Page-Ladson Site in the Aucilla River

Over the last 20 years the Aucilla River Prehistory Project has been one of the most fascinating stories unfolding in Florida. This project, uncovering the remains of plants and animals from the end of the last Ice Age and the beginning of Florida's human occupation, is answering questions important to the entire western hemisphere.

The Living Elephants

Information on both Asian and African elephants. From the ancient origins of the proboscideans to the present-day crisis of the living elephants, this volume synthesizes the behavior, ecology and conservation of elephants, while covering also the history of human interactions with elephants, all within the theoretical framework of evolutionary biology.

Ivory, Horn and Blood: Behind the Elephant and Rhinoceros Poaching Crisis

As recently as ten years ago, out of every ten African elephants that died, four fell at the hands of poachers. The figure today is eight. This book tells a crime story that takes place thousands of miles away, in countries that few of us may visit. Like the trade in illegal drugs, the traffic in elephant ivory and rhinoceros horn has far-reaching implications not only for these endangered animals, but also for the human victims of a world-wide surge in organized crime, corruption and violence. Since the worldwide ban on ivory trading was passed in 1989, author Ronald Orenstein has been at the heart of the fight. 

Ivory: Power and Poaching in Africa

Despite the 1989 global ivory trade ban, poaching and ivory smuggling have not abated. More than half of Tanzania's elephants have been killed for their ivory since 2007. A similarly alarming story can be told of the herds in northern Mozambique and across swathes of central Africa. But why the new upsurge? The popular narrative blames a meeting of two evils - criminal poaching and terrorism. But the answer is not that simple. Somerville argues that regulation - not prohibition - of the ivory trade is the best way to stop uncontrolled poaching.

The Last Giants: The Rise and Fall of the African Elephant

From award-winning explorer and bestselling author Levison Wood, this book is a comprehensive exploration of the fascinating past, difficult present, and imperiled future of the African elephant. The Last Giants satisfies British explorer Levison Wood's lifelong desire to learn more about the majestic African elephant.

The Legacy of the Mastodon: The Golden Age of Fossils in America

The uncovering in the mid-1700s of fossilized mastodon bones and teeth at Big Bone Lick, Kentucky, signaled the beginning of a great American adventure. This exciting book tells the story of the grandest period of fossil discovery in American history, the years from 1750 to 1890.  

Love, Life, and Elephants: An African Love Story

Daphne Sheldrick, whose family arrived in Africa from Scotland in the 1820s, is the first person ever to have successfully hand-reared newborn elephants. Her deep empathy and understanding, her years of observing Kenya's rich variety of wildlife, and her pioneering work in perfecting the right husbandry and milk formula have saved countless elephants, rhinos, and other baby animals from certain death. In this heartwarming and poignant memoir, Daphne shares her amazing relationships with a host of orphans.

Love, War, and Circuses: The Age-old Relationship Between Elephants and Humans

For millennia, people all over the world have revered, adored, and exploited elephants. In Thailand, a pregnant woman ducks under an elephant's belly in hopes of having an easy delivery; a tycoon builds an elephant-shaped skyscraper; and pirate loggers feed amphetamines to their elephants to make them haul back-breaking loads. In India, milling worshippers dance with gilded tuskers at ecstatic temple festivals. Eric Scigliano traces an age-old, extraordinary relationship between species and shows how it still haunts and inspires us today. He explains how elephants may have been "nursemaids" to human evolution and how they have shaped history, art, religion, and popular culture as no other animals have. 

Mammoths and Mastodons of the Ice Age

A vivid, authoritative exploration of the iconic giants of the Ice Age. Featuring stunning photographs of skeletons, casts, tusks and preserved flesh from the world-famous collections of the Natural History Museum in London and Chicago's Field Museum (home to the most complete and best preserved mammoth baby), this book reveals what life was like for these prehistoric giants whose remains invite so much modern fascination and speculation.

Poaching and Militancy: The Asian Elephant Under Siege

The Asian elephant is an endangered species due to its relentless poaching mainly for ivory. However, unlike the African elephant whose both males and females are tusk bearers, in Asian elephants only males bear tusk. This has resulted in their selective killing and has not only led to an alarming fall in their number but impacted the sex-ratio. This book critically examines this problem and addresses the issue of human-elephant conflict.

Survival or Extinction?: How to Save Elephants and Rhinos

Written with passion for anyone interested in seeing an end to the illegal trade in elephant ivory and rhino horn, this book shows how, by working together, people all over the world who care about these animals are gradually bringing about change for the better. Throughout the message is clear. We can and must save these animals from extinction.

Topsy: The Startling Story of the Crooked-Tailed Elephant, P.T. Barnum, and the American Wizard, Thomas Edison

In 1903, on Coney Island, an elephant named Topsy was electrocuted, and over the past century, this bizarre, ghoulish execution has reverberated through popular culture with the whiff of urban legend. But it really happened, and many historical forces conspired to bring Topsy, Thomas Edison, and those 6600 volts of alternating current together that day. Tracing them all, journalist Michael Daly weaves together a fascinating popular history, the first book on this astonishing tale.

When Elephants Paint: The Quest of Two Russian Artists to Save the Elephants of Thailand

For centuries elephants in Thailand have been revered as a national symbol, worshiped as living gods and employed as beasts of burden in the nation's thriving timber industry. But when logging was banned in Thailand in 1990, these noble animals fell on hard times. Reduced to performing tricks for tourists by day and illegal heavy labor by night, Thailand's elephants were exhausted, malnourished, and dying in alarming numbers. Hearing of their plight, a pair of unlikely heroes came to the rescue, Wildly eccentric Russian emigre artists Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid devised a brilliant scheme: to create the world's first quadruped occupational retraining program-a network of art schools for unemployed elephants.

Woolly: The True Story of the Quest to Revive One of History's Most Iconic Extinct Creatures

Science fiction becomes reality in this Jurassic Park-like story of the genetic resurrection of an extinct species, the woolly mammoth. "With his knack for turning narrative nonfiction into stories worthy of the best thriller fiction," Ben Mezrich takes us on an exhilarating true adventure story from the icy terrain of Siberia to the genetic labs of Harvard University. A group of young scientists, under the guidance of a brilliant geneticist, works to make fantasy reality by sequencing the DNA of a frozen woolly mammoth and splicing elements of that sequence into the DNA of a modern elephant. Will they be able to turn the hybrid cells into a functional embryo and bring the extinct creatures to life in our modern world?

Juvenile Titles - Many Added to the Collection by Hezy Shoshani

The Amazing Social Lives of African Elephants

Includes a concise overview of the species, questions to spark critical thinking, and sources to guide further research.

Babar's Trunk

Also includes Babar Goes on a Picnic, Babar Goes Skiing, Babar at the Seashore, and Babar the Gardener.

A Baby Elephant in the Wild

In this account for preschool through elementary readers, find answers to questions such as: What do newborn elephants look like? How big are they? What threatens them in the wild? What happens if they don't get enough food or water? Are they at risk of extinction?

Elephant Facts

Presents numerous facts about the ancestry, growth, habits, and behavior of the largest land animal.

Elephant Family

Follows a herd of elephants through the round of its daily activities and explores the relationship between members.

Elephant Rescue: True-Life Stories

In Elephant Rescue, children will meet Nina and Pinky, two elephants that survived terrible misfortunes and were trapped in captivity ... until the Born Free Foundation stepped in to save them.

The Elephant Scientist

Named a 2012 Robert F. Sibert Honor Book. American scientist Caitlin O'Connell's groundbreaking discovery about elephant communication.

The Elephant Whisperer: My Live with the Herd in the African Wild

When Lawrence Anthony was asked to accept a rogue herd of elephants in his reserve in South Africa, it was the last chance for these elephants. If Anthony didn't take them, they would be shot. But he had no experience with elephants at all. What was he to do? Take them on, of course!

Elephants Can Paint Too!

In this true story you'll learn about an amazing class of elephants that are taught to become artists by an amazing teacher.

The Elephants' Ears

Although elephants Palo and Mala are brother and sister, they are very different.

Face to Face with Elephants

The Jouberts take readers face to face with the elephants as they come under attack from lions...and from mankind. Learn how to help protect these animals and prevent shrinking herds being driven into ever smaller parcels of land.

Hansa: The True Story of an Asian Elephant Baby

Illustrated with full-color photographs, this educational book chronicles Hansa's birth and includes facts about elephant habitat, feeding habits, and anatomy.

How to Wash a Woolly Mammoth

Young readers and parents alike will appreciate this hilarious bath time adventure.

I Am a Little Elephant

What if animals could talk? These charming books each depict a day in the life of a young animal -- as told by the animal itself!

Incredible Elephants: A Fascinating Guide to the Gentle Giants that Dominate Africa and Asia

This guide offers an insight into the lives of these intelligent and mysterious creatures. Ideal for 8- to 12-year-olds.

Jumbo

The story of the famous African elephant whose name has become our word for "huge."

Little Big Ears: The Story of Ely

Follows a young elephant as he struggles to survive during his first year of life with the help of his family in Amboseli, a protected wildlife park in Kenya.

Meet the Elephant!

Tells about the parts of an elephant.

One Amazing Elephant

In this heartwarming novel, a girl and an elephant face the same devastating loss--and slowly realize that they share the same powerful love.

Travels with Tarra

The story of the establishment of the Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tennessee, an 800-acre refuge now home to Tarra and other elephants. A place just for elephants -- no visitors.

Woolly Mammoth: Life, Death, and Rediscovery

About the Jarkov mammoth, recently unearthed in Siberia. Packed with fascinating facts and full-color action photos of the expedition.

World's Worst Elephant Jokes

Subtitled: A book about elephants -- their hopes, fears, jokes, and psychological problems.

Recent Acquisitions from the Collection's 2020 Scope Expansion

30-Second Zoology: The 50 Most Fundamental Categories and Concepts from the Study of Animal Life

30-Second Zoology showcases 50 of the most fundamental categories and concepts from the study of Zoology, each explained in 300 words and one illustration.

The Age of Mammals: Nature, Development, and Paleontology in the Long Nineteenth Century

Examines how nineteenth-century scholars, writers, artists, and public audiences understood the animals they regarded as being at the summit of life. Manias considers the cultural resonance of mammal paleontology from an international perspective -- how reconstructions of the deep past of fossil mammals across the world conditioned new understandings of nature and the current environment.

Animal Ethics and Animal Law

"Animal law is a growing discipline, as is animal ethics. In this wide-ranging book, scholars from around the world address the intersections between the two. A project of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, this collection focuses on pressing moral issues and how law can protect animals from cruelty and abuse"-- Provided by publisher.

Animal Rights

A fresh view of animals and what we owe them. Do animals have moral standing? Do they count, morally speaking? In Animal Rights, Mark Rowlands argues that they do and explores the implications of this idea. Rowlands writes that, no matter what moral theory you choose, the most plausible version of that theory entails that animals have moral standing and that our obligations to them are far more substantial than many of us care to acknowledge.

Animal Suffering, Human Rights, and the Virtue of Justice

Bauhn first outlines some aspects of contemporary philosophical views on animals and morality, including the criticism of speciesism and the animal rights argument. Second, he criticizes these views, arguing that we cannot escape a speciesist perspective on morality, and that there are no good reasons why we should believe that non-human animals have moral rights. Third, he argues that cruelty against non-human animals is morally wrong, but not because animal rights are being violated but because human agents who inflict cruelty on non-human animals are failing their duty to develop in themselves the virtue of justice.

At Home in the Anthropocene

"Applies the tenets of posthumanism, compassionate conservation, and entangled empathy to a set of wildlife stories to demonstrate how humans can best coexist with their nonhuman kin during the age of climate change and crises"-- Provided by publisher.

Beast Companions: The Unsung Animals of the Dinosaurs' World

Despite their fame and reputation, dinosaurs represent only half the story of the Mesozoic Era. Foster explores the often-overlooked animals that coexisted with them. These ancient species, often equally remarkable as their dinosaur neighbors, can provide valuable insights into the biotic history of our planet. In some cases, these animals reveal just as much, if not more, about the extinct ecosystems of the time as the dinosaurs themselves.

Beastly: The 40,000-Year Story of Animals and Us

How did we domesticate animals and why did we choose sheep, goats, cows, pigs, horses, and chickens--but never zebras? How can whales help solve climate change? What does it mean when a young woman befriends a boar, a gorilla tells a joke, or a fish thinks? What does a wren sing? Beastly is a gorgeously written, deeply researched, and intensely felt journey into the splendor and genius of animals and the long, complicated story of our interactions with them as humans. Our relationship with animals has shaped our planet and, if reimagined, could save it.

The Book of Vanishing Species: Illustrated Lives

A stunning homage to the planet's most mysterious, bizarre and wondrous creatures and plants. Each is illuminated with an exquisite illustration. This is both a love letter to life on Earth, and an urgent summons to protect what is precious and lovely in this world.

The Codex of the Endangered Species Act: Volume I, The First Fifty Years

The Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA) is one of the most cherished and reviled laws ever passed. It mandates protection and preservation of all the nation's species and biodiversity, whatever the cost. It has been a lightning rod for controversy and conflicts between industry/business and environmentalists. The year 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of this law, and provides an opportunity for a measured and thorough evaluation thereof. We cannot know today's challenges and opportunities without understanding their histories. This book is the most comprehensive history of the ESA ever published, and the first to consider the entire history of the law from all angles in a single volume.

The Codex of the Endangered Species Act: Volume II, The Next Fifty Years

Leading Endangered Species Act experts interpret and propose legislative and administrative changes to prepare the ESA for future challenges. They explore regulations on avoiding harm to and producing benefits for species, cooperation between state and federal agencies, scientific analyses, and the necessary politics to enact their ideas. This is a call to action to chart an enlightened future for the Endangered Species Act that embraces the nation's moral commitment of 50 years ago to address species extinction constructively, mindful of biodiversity, and as a fixture among the nation's values and needs.

Conservation and Community in Kenya: Milking the Elephant

Lesorogol examines community-based wildlife conservation in Kenya and its complex effects on local communities. Lesorogol argues that this approach to conservation creates new land use institutions, brings both benefits and costs to conservancy members, and at times heightens social conflict.

Convergent Evolution: Animal Form and Function

Presents a series of case studies, at different levels of inclusivity, of how organisms exhibit functional convergence as a key evolutionary mechanism resulting in responses to similar environmental constraints in mechanically similar ways. All chapters stress the need for integrative approaches for the elucidation of both pattern and process as they relate to convergence at various taxonomic levels.

Criminal Justice, Wildlife Conservation and Animal Rights in the Anthropocene

This book addresses one of today's most urgent issues: the loss of wildlife and habitat, which together constitute an ecological crisis. Combining studies from different disciplines such as law, political science and criminology, with a focus on animal rights, the chapters explore the successes and failures of the international wildlife conservation and trade treaties, CITES and the BERN Convention.

Critical Animal Studies and Activism: International Perspectives on Total Liberation and Intersectionality

Essential reading for environmentalists, animal advocates, social justice organizers, policy-makers, social change-makers, and indeed for all those who care about the future of this planet. This book spans many scholar disciplines and activist social movements, and provides new insights to fundamental debates surrounding inter-species justice, liberation, and democracy.

Critical Animal Studies and Social Justice: Critical Theory, Dismantling Speciesism, and Total Liberation

An essential read for activists, community organizers, and justice scholars. A collection that combines scholarship and activism. Includes contributions from authors around the world influenced by critical theory, feminism, social justice, political theory, media studies, environmental justice, food justice, disability studies, and Black liberation. The contributors examine and disrupt many of the exclusionary assumptions and behaviors by those working toward justice and liberation, encouraging the reader to reflect on their own thoughts and actions.

Critical Thinking in Biology and Environmental Education: Facing Challenges in a Post-truth World

This volume seeks to broaden current ideas about the role of critical thinking in biology and environmental education considering educational challenges in the post-truth era. The chapters are distributed into three sections, perspectives of a theoretical character (part I), empirical research about CT in the context of biology and health education (part II), and empirical research on CT in the context of environmental and sustainability education (part III). Discusses how CT can be integrated in biology and environmental education. Topics explored include climate change, sustainable diets, genetically modified food, vaccination, acceptance of evolution, homeopathy, and gene cloning.

Earth's Emergency Room: Saving Species as the Planet and Politics Get Hotter

Baier, attorney and environmental historian, celebrates 50 years of the landmark Endangered Species Act of 1973, a bipartisan law passed by Congress and signed into law by President Richard M. Nixon. Baier provides an insightful and entertaining history of the ESA's dramatic highs and lows. Drawing from his extensive experience as a negotiator and activist, Baier argues that the ESA is flexible enough to ameliorate the biodiversity crisis while still respecting landowners, states, and industries. He ultimately calls on all Americans to embrace a spirit of bipartisanship and conservation to strengthen the law that has been Earth's emergency room for half a century.

Effects of Climate Change on Insects: Physiological, Evolutionary, and Ecological Responses

Anthropogenic climate change is the defining environmental challenge of this century, posing an existential threat not only to humans but also to the vast array of plants and animals that inhabit our planet. Among these, insects reign as the largest and most diverse group of organisms, playing critical roles in nutrient cycling, pollination, seed dispersal, and population control of other species. Additionally, they serve as a vital food source for various taxa and act as vectors for numerous human diseases. This comprehensive but accessible text delves into the intricate world of these remarkable creatures. In so doing, it uncovers valuable insights into the implications posed by climate change on global insect populations.

The End of Eden: Wild Nature in the Age of Climate Breakdown

New Yorker Best Book of the Year. The End of Eden invites the reader to meet wild species on their own terms in a range of ecosystems that span the globe. Combining classic natural history, firsthand reportage, and insights from cutting-edge research, Adam Welz brings us close to creatures like moose in northern Maine, parrots in Puerto Rico, cheetahs in Namibia, and rare fish in Australia as they struggle to survive. The stories are intimate yet expansive and always dramatic. An exquisitely written and deeply researched exploration of wild species reacting to climate breakdown,

Extreme Conservation: Life at the Edges of the World

A revealing exploration of how climate change and people are affecting even the most far-flung niches of our planet. Berger's quest takes him to some of the most remote corners and peaks of the globe: across Arctic tundra and the frozen Chukchi Sea to study muskoxen, into the Bhutanese Himalayas to follow the rarely sighted takin, and through the Gobi Desert to track the proboscis-swinging saiga. Berger is known for his rigorous, scientific methods of developing solutions to conservation challenges. As his adventures show, the more adapted a species has become to its particular ecological niche, the more devastating climate change can be. Life at the extremes is more challenging than ever, and the need for action, for solutions, has never been greater.

Global Animal Law from the Margins: International Trade in Animals and Their Bodies

This book critically engages the emerging field of global animal law from the perspective of an intersectional ethical framework. Argues that global animal law overrepresents views from the west and does not sufficiently engage views from the Global South, as well as from Indigenous and other marginalised communities. Tracing this imbalance to the early development of animal law's reaction to issues of international trade, the book elicits the anthropocentrism and colonialism that underpin this bias. In response, the book outlines a new, intersectional, second wave of animal ethics. Incorporating marginalised viewpoints, it elevates the field beyond the dominant concern with animal welfare and rights.

Human/Animal Relationships in Transformation: Scientific, Moral and Legal Perspectives

The ethics of human/animal relationships is a growing field of academic research and a topic for public discussion and regulatory interventions from law-makers, governments and private institutions. Human/animal relationships are in transformation and understanding the nature of this process means analysing and critically discussing the philosophical, scientific and legal concepts and arguments embedded in it. This book contributes to the discussion by bringing together the ideas and reflections of leading experts from different disciplinary backgrounds and with a range of scientific perspectives. This book both provides an up-to-date examination of the transformation of human/animal relationships and presents ideas to foster this process.

The Internet of Animals: Human-Animals Relationships in the Digital Age

Lupton explores how digital technologies and datafication are changing our relationships with other animals. Playfully building on the concept of 'The Internet of Things', she discusses the complex feelings that have developed between people and animals through the use of digital devices, from social media to employing animal-like robots as companions and carers. The book brings together a range of perspectives, including those of sociology, cultural geography, environmental humanities, critical animal studies and internet studies, to consider how these new digital technologies are contributing to major changes in human-animal relationships at both the micropolitical and macropolitical levels.

Lost Kingdom: Animal Death in the Anthropocene

The authors in 'Lost Kingdom' grapple with both the catastrophe of mass animal extinction, in which the panoply of earthly life is in the accelerating process of disappearing, and with the mass death of industrial animal agriculture. Both forms of anthropogenic violence against animals cast the Anthropocene as an era of criminality and loss driven by boundless human exceptionalism, forcing a reckoning with and an urgent reimagining of human-animal relations.

Our Animal Connection: What Sapiens Can Learn from Other species

This book covers the many ways humans benefit from interactions with other living species. The authors discuss the strengths and weaknesses of Homo sapiens, and how the study of animals can make us stronger and healthier. To deepen our knowledge of genetics, molecular and cell biology, physiology and medicine, we need to study model organisms. To cure human disease, we can learn from animals how they have evolved ways to protect themselves. To improve human performance, we can study the animal kingdom's top performers and learn from their successes. Considering these important pointers, the authors review genetic engineering techniques that can translate our existing and future animal connections into benefits for human health and performance.

Our Kindred Creatures: How Americans Came to Feel the Way They do about Animals

Before the Civil War, animals' suffering had rarely been discussed; horses pulling carriages and carts were routinely beaten in public view, and dogs were pitted against each other for entertainment and gambling. But in 1866, a group of activists began a dramatic campaign to change the nation's laws and norms, and by the century's end, most Americans had adopted a very different way of thinking and feeling about the animals in their midst. In this book, the authors offer a fascinating history of this crusade and the battles it sparked in American life.

The Oxford Handbook of Animal Organization Studies

Just as climate change and environmental sustainability have become growing concerns in public discourse, so too have they become a persistent focus in business and organization studies. Spanning a number of disciplinary approaches including critical geography, critical management studies, social studies of science, and human-animal studies, the volume holds relevance for those investigating debates around humanism and its futures; environmental and sustainability matters; the experience of working with and on animals, and the future of animal consumption and production.

Paleontology: An Illustrated History

An illustrated look at the art and science of paleontology from its origins to today. Bainbridge takes readers from ancient Greece to the eighteenth century, when paleontology began to coalesce into the scientific field we know today, and discusses how contemporary paleontologists use cutting-edge technologies to flesh out the discoveries of past and present. He brings to life the stories and people behind some of the greatest fossil finds of all time, and explains how paleontology has long straddled the spheres of science and art. This panoramic book brings together stunning illustrations ranging from early sketches and engravings to eye-popping paleoart and high-tech computer reconstructions.

Paleontology in Ecology and Conservation

The fossil record contains unique long-term insights into how ecosystems form and function which cannot be determined simply by examining modern systems. It also provides a record of endangered species through time, which allow us to make conservation decisions based on thousands to millions of years of information. The aim of this book is to demonstrate how palaeontological data has been or could be incorporated into ecological or conservation scientific studies.

Passionate Animals: Emotions, Animal Ethics, and Moral Pragmatics

The author draws on the theoretical achievements made in ethics, political philosophy, and human-animal studies, addressing the problem that these advancements have not resulted in practical change toward significantly improved human-animal-relations. In the tradition of philosophical pragmatism and with reference to congenial thinkers like Mary Midgley, Cojocaru develops a moral pragmatics that highlights the role of emotions in moral and political life and focuses on the institutions necessary to make tangible progress on the problems posed by animal experimentation and factory farming.

A Place Like No Other: Discovering the Secrets of the Serengeti

From famed zoologist Anthony Sinclair, an account of his decades-long quest to understand one of Earth's most spectacular ecosystems. With its rich biodiversity, astounding wildlife, and breathtaking animal migrations, Serengeti is like no other ecosystem on the planet. This book is Sinclair's first-hand account of how he and other scientists discovered the biological principles that regulate life in Serengeti, and how those same principles are the rules by which the natural world works.

Resurrection Science: Conservation, de-Extinction and the Precarious Future of Wild Things

O'Connor explores the extreme measures scientists are taking to try and save endangered species, from captive breeding and genetic management to de-extinction. O'Connor investigates the philosophical questions of an age in which we "play god" with earth's biodiversity. Each chapter focuses on a unique species--from the charismatic northern white rhinoceros to the infamous passenger pigeon--and the people entwined in the animals' fates. A Library Journal Best Book of 2015.

The Return of Wolves: An Iconic Predator's Struggle to Survive in the American West

The gray wolf has made an astonishing comeback in Washington. Nearly eradicated by the 1990s, conservationists and environmentalists have cheered its robust return to the state over the last two decades. But Washington ranchers are not so joyous. When wolves prey on livestock, ranchers view their livelihood as under attack. Francovich investigates how we might mend this divide while keeping wolf populations thriving.

The Social Neuroscience of Human–Animal Interaction

A cross-disciplinary group of authors that includes behavioral psychologists, neuroscientists, geneticists, ethicists and veterinarians seek to understand human–animal interactions by applying research in the neurobiology and genetics that underlie human social functioning.

Survival or Extinction?: How to Save Elephants and Rhinos

Written with passion for anyone interested in seeing an end to the illegal trade in elephant ivory and rhino horn, this book shows how, by working together, people all over the world who care about these animals are gradually bringing about change for the better. Throughout the message is clear. We can and must save these animals from extinction.

A Tale of Two Cranes: Lessons Learned from 50 Years of the Endangered Species Act

It's been 50 years since the United States attempted a conservation revolution with the passing of the Endangered Species Act in 1973. Now, fifty years later, the Fish and Wildlife Service finds itself at a crossroads: some recovery efforts are succeeding, but too many are either failing or stuck in neutral, even after decades of work. Take, for example, the story of two cranes, the whooping crane of southeastern Texas and the red-crowned crane of northern Japan. These two case studies provide a template for comparing different approaches towards endangered species: habitat management vs. population management.

Tenacious Beasts: Widlife Recoveries That Change how We Think about Animals

An inspiring look at wildlife species that are defying the odds and teaching important lessons about how to share a planet. The news about wildlife is dire -- more than 900 species have been wiped off the planet since industrialization. Against this bleak backdrop, however, there are also glimmers of hope and crucial lessons to be learned from animals that have defied global trends toward extinction.

The Three Ethologies: A Positive Vision for Rebuilding Human-Animal Relationships

Venturing beyond the usual scholarly and activist emphasis on restricting harm, Calarco develops a new philosophy for understanding animal behavior--a practice known as ethology--through three distinct but interrelated lenses: mental ethology, which rebuilds individual subjectivity; social ethology, which rethinks our communal relations; and environmental ethology, which reconfigures our relationship to the land we co-inhabit with our animal kin. Draws on developments in philosophy, (eco)feminist theory, critical geography, Indigenous studies, and the environmental humanities.

Vanishing Treasures: A Bestiary of Extraordinary Endangered Creatures

National bestseller. In this brilliant and passionately persuasive book, Katherine Rundell takes us on a globe-spanning tour of the world's most awe-inspiring animals currently facing extinction. This urgent, inspiring book of essays dedicated to 23 unusual and underappreciated creatures is a clarion call insisting that we look at the world around us with new eyes--to see the magic of the animals we live among, their unknown histories and capabilities, and above all how lucky we are to tread the same ground as such vanishing treasures. Illustrated.

What Do We Owe Other Animals? A Debate

Philosophers Fischer and Jauernig agree that human society often treats animals in indefensible ways and that all animals morally matter; they disagree on whether humans and animals morally matter equally. Jauernig defends the view that all living beings morally matter equally and are owed compassion, on account of which we are also obligated to adopt a vegan diet. Fischer denies that we have an obligation to become vegans, and argues for the position that humans morally matter more than all other living creatures.

Where the Wild Things Were: Life, Death, and Ecological Wreckage in a Land of Vanishing Predators

For years, predators like snow leopards and white-tipped sharks have been disappearing from the top of the food chain, largely as a result of human action. Science journalist Will Stolzenburg reveals why and how their absence upsets the delicate balance of the world's environment.

Wild Things, Wild Places: Adventurous Tales of Wildlife and Conservation on Planet Earth

Jane Alexander movingly, with a clear eye and keen grasp of the issues and on what is being done in conservation and the worlds of science to help the planet's most endangered species to stay alive and thrive, writes of her immersion into the worlds of wildlife conservation.

A Wilder Kingdom: Rethinking Nature in Zoos, Wildlife Parks, and Beyond

This book is a provocative and reflective examination of the relationship between zoos and the wild. It gathers a premier set of multidisciplinary voices to consider the possibilities and challenges of making zoos wilder.

Wildlife Behavior and Conservation

Begins with in-depth coverage of wildlife behavior concepts as they relate to conservation problems. Topics focus principally on discussion, critique, and development of behavioral concepts, with particular attention given to published studies on various topics in wildlife behavioral concepts as related to conservation and natural history. Extensive list of references included.

Wildlife Biodiversity Conservation: Multidisciplinary and Forensic Approaches

This book addresses the multidisciplinary challenges in biodiversity conservation with a focus on wildlife crime and how forensic tools can be applied to protect species and preserve ecosystems. Illustrated by numerous case studies covering different geographical regions and species, the book introduces the fundamentals of biodiversity conflicts, outlines the unique challenges of wildlife crime scenes, and reviews latest techniques in environmental forensics, such as DNA metagenomics.

Fiction/Novels

Iki (ICK-ee)

Iki is the name of a former circus elephant whose remains were obtained by Hezy Shoshani in 1980. Her skeleton was on display in the lobby of the science library for years, then dismantled and put in storage. When Wayne State renovated the STEM building on campus, Iki was reassembled and is now on permanent display on the first floor.

Sandra Shoshani

Wayne State University Libraries gratefully acknowledges Mrs. Sandra Shoshani, who has generously funded the Jeheskel (Hezy) Shoshani Library Endowed Collection. Pictured below, center, in yellow coat. This image is from her visit to campus in May 2025.

Remembering Hezy Shoshani

See More of the Collection

Go to the advanced search screen of the library's catalog. In the first line, choose TITLE from the drop-down menu and enter SHOSHANI in the search box. Click the submit button.