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    Cannibalism
    Cannibalism
    Cannibalism
    Audiobook8 hours

    Cannibalism

    Written by Bill Schutt

    Narrated by Tom Perkins

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Eating one's own kind is a completely natural behavior in thousands of species, including humans. Throughout history we have engaged in cannibalism for reasons related to famine, burial rites, and medicine. Cannibalism has also been used as a form of terrorism and as the ultimate expression of filial piety. With unexpected wit and a wealth of knowledge, Bill Schutt takes us on a tour of the field, exploring exciting new avenues of research and investigating questions like why so many fish eat their offspring and some amphibians consume their mother's skin; why sexual cannibalism is an evolutionary advantage for certain spiders; why, until the end of the eighteenth century, British royalty regularly ate human body parts; and how cannibalism might be linked to the extinction of Neanderthals.

    Today, the subject of humans consuming one another has been relegated to the realm of horror movies, fiction, and the occasional psychopath. But as climate change progresses and humans see more famine, disease, and overcrowding, biological and cultural constraints may well disappear. These are the very factors that lead to outbreaks of cannibalism-in other species and our own.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHighbridge Company
    Release dateFeb 14, 2017
    ISBN9781681681979
    Cannibalism
    Author

    Bill Schutt

    Bill Schutt is Professor of Biology at LIU-Post (Long Island University) and Research Associate at the American Museum of Natural History. He is the author of Dark Banquet: Blood and the Curious Lives of Blood-Feeding Creatures and a novel, Hell's Gate (with J. R. Finch).

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    Reviews for Cannibalism

    4/5

    183 ratings30 reviews

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    • 5/5
      This book is a scientific look at cannibalism through the eye of a zoologist. Reviewing the topic without sensationalizing or being overtly graphic.
    • 5/5
      Very detailed and interesting book on cannibalism in humans and other animals. Highly recommend
    • 5/5
      A great book, scientific, well researched and interesting on the subject.
    • 5/5
      Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History is exactly what the title suggests, a scientist explaining why cannibalism is part of normal biologic processes. At least until you get to the discussion of humans. It is not a textbook, but it is scholarly, yet readable, with Schutt’s sly humor liberally peppered throughout. The tone is set in his prologue, where he mentions both Hannibal Lector (for obvious reasons) and Norman Bates, explaining that Robert Bloch’s ultimate mama’s boy was inspired by Ed Gein. And if you don’t recognize that name, this is probably not the book for you.Schutt introduces readers to the concept of normalized cannibalism by explaining the biological rationale behind fish consuming the juveniles of their own species, or discussing why certain tadpoles react to their environmental stress by evolving into oversized cannibalistic versions of their vegetarian (and apparently delicious) siblings.As the book progresses, he ends up with humans, where the current societal taboo of cannibalism is directly in conflict with the history of mankind. European nobles regularly consumed human flesh as a medical treatment. Columbus and those who followed had no issue exterminating the dreaded Carib tribe because they were cannibals, information conveniently provided by the Arawaks, mortal enemies of the Caribs. There have been more serious ramifications of cannibalism beyond using it as an excuse for political- and religious-sanctioned genocide. The Fore People in Papua New Guinea suffered an epidemic of the neurological disease Kuru in the 1950s, caused by the local tradition of ritual cannibalism of their dead. And let’s not forget Mad Cow Disease, passed to humans from cows infected by being fed protein that was formerly an infected cow.And yes, he does discuss the Donner Party, but he does so by talking to historians studying the event. By adding context to the tale, Schutt diminishes the salacious content somewhat but the focus remains the existing dichotomy in the perception of cannibalism. As much as we profess to abhor cannibalism (Eli Roth and/or Umberto Lenzi films aside), we are also a culture where birth class routinely suggest the mother eating her own placenta as a natural way to ward off postpartum depression. That’s ritual cannibalism – people eating people parts.The book ends on a cautionary note. Environmental change, overcrowding, and famine are precursors to cannibalism in numerous species, including humans. It’s a dire prediction, but don’t start stressing and chewing on your nails – that’s technically cannibalism too.
    • 4/5
      equal parts informative, entertaining and grotesque (I never want to hear the word "placenta" again - in any context)
    • 4/5
      A thorough, even-handed introduction to the realities of cannibalism in humans and other animals. Schutt does a great job of not sensationalizing, and of bringing in a multiplicity of viewpoints. Alas for me, I'd read several of his sources already, so I didn't learn much new.
    • 4/5
      A very broad overview of cannibalism starting with a biological perspective leading to more social aspects, though the author's excuse to merely mention the more criminal aspects of cannibalism in the west, leaves a large gap.
    • 3/5
      I had mixed feelings about this book. I was expecting the book to have more of a focus on the more scientific elements of cannibalism. Perhaps that is why I enjoyed the beginning of the book, which focused more on the zoological evidence of cannibalism within multiple species. I found the latter half of the book, which dealt more with anthropological studies of cannibalism, a bit less interesting because it felt more like a rehashing of stories and ethnographies already written. Regardless, this is a well-written book, as amusing and light-hearted as anything concerning cannibalism can be.
    • 4/5
      Hey, did you know that lots of animals eat their own kind? There are some rules of thumb, no pun intended, most of which make sense as soon as you see them: young animals are more often on the menu; many animals, “particularly invertebrates, do not recognize individuals of their own kind, especially eggs and immature stages, which are simply regarded as a food source”; females cannibalize more than males; cannibalism is correlated with hunger/an absence of other food sources; and cannibalism is often directly correlated with overcrowding. In some species, young animals consume their littermates in order to accelerate their own development, which helps them out of the most defenseless stage of life. Cannibals otherwise tend to disfavor eating kin, to prevent decreases in inclusive fitness. The greatest drawbacks to cannibalism seem to be the risk of getting sick—parasites and pathogens are more easily transmitted within species; there’s an extensive discussion of kuru/CJD (which turns out to be quite possibly viral, not the result of prions as such; proteins get digested in the gastrointestinal tract, while viruses get through unscathed). (Reminder that the government investigator who investigated the death of a young girl at the beginning of the outbreak in Britain warned her grandmother not to say anything because of the damage it would do to the economy.) If the pattern is the same as with kuru acquired via ritual cannibalism, then it may be decades before Europeans exposed in the 1970s and 80s start to die en masse—one estimate is one carrier of the abnormal prion protein for every 2000 people in the UK (though not all carriers will fall ill).I also never considered breastfeeding or chewing one’s own fingernails as cannibalism, but it turns out to be hard to have a working definition without at least putting those on the borders. The caecilians—limbless amphibians—eat their mother’s skin off her body soon after they’re born. The young of live-bearing caecilians also “tear away and consume the lining of their mothers’ oviduct.” Yum! The bulk of the book is about human cannibalism, both as a recognized part of culture and as desperate act of attempted survival. Schutt notes that Europeans tended to describe other groups as cannibals precisely to the extent that they wanted the land on which the cannibals lived; there’s apparently a big anthropological dispute about whether any cultures deemed such really engaged in cannibalism at all, or whether it was all Western propaganda. Schutt seemingly comes down on the side of those who say that there is/was at least some endocannibalism (eating one’s own naturally expired dead as a way to respect them, as opposed to eating enemies killed in battle). Then there’s Chinese medical cannibalism, and some European medical cannibalism (and the modern practice among rich white women of eating placenta). He also mentions the slaughter of Jews for supposed attacks on the Host during the Middle Ages, which was thought to have been revealed by bleeding Hosts—which could actually have been bacterial contamination.
    • 2/5
      Not what I expected. Dry and engaging.
    • 3/5
      Not bad and informative science book. Much drier than one would hope. I personally found it rather plodding at points and sustained interest by skimming as it could be somewhat repetitive. Seems more like a series of individually written essays that are okay on their own, but that no editor went through to make them read like a coherent text. If I had other things on my shelf, I would skip this one.
    • 5/5
      I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers Program.Wow.This was a topic that I occasionally have an interest in, but it's short-lived and I never pursue it. So when I saw this book, I thought it might be a good opportunity to actually dedicate some time to cannibalism.Schutt receives great applause from me for staying away from the gruesome and gory details of the crimes that pop culture has hashed and rehashed time and again. Taking a look at cannibalism from the scope of a zoologist, this book focuses more on the science behind why cannibalism happens. Much of it has nothing to do with humans, but instead with the animal kingdom. This, to me, made the book feel like an education and not a sensationalism. Which is exactly, I believe, what Schutt intended.Schutt is hilarious. His humor is often dry, but I was constantly laughing and underlining as I read. And I think that the wit helps to coat the cannibalism on the way down. It pulls away from the seriousness of taboo that our culture so often instills in us. HIs writing is also very accessible. I'm not one for science in most cases, but I never felt like his language was above my understanding. Addictingly readable, I couldn't put this down.I didn't have much issue throughout, although there is a chapter on placenta eating that I struggled with. Who knew.I have been recommending it to everyone who so much as glances at the cover with a raised eyebrow. Yes -- read it.I devoured it.Pun intended.
    • 4/5
      I have always found the visceral reaction we have to cannibalism fascinating and a bit confusing and I was hoping this book could shed some light on this and it turns out the whole thing is even more complicated than I thought. I had no idea there were so many different views on cannibalism throughout history. And many things I thought I knew about cannibalism, both animal and human, turned out to be flat out wrong. Each chapter deals with a different aspect of cannibalism, staring out with tadpoles in a puddle and moving on to hot buttons such as the Donner Party and how misunderstood that event has become, to our modern iteration of cannibalism with placenta eating. Things I still don’t get? Why people get upset at the idea dinosaurs were cannibals and placenta eating. I was fine reading everything right up until the placenta eating. Who knew that would be my hard no.I really enjoyed this book; it was fun, informative and very accessible to the non-science readers out there and does a lot to demystify the idea of cannibalism and I appreciated how the author made clear from the beginning that he wasn’t delving into serial killers and the like. That is a whole different conversation that wouldn’t have fit here at all.
    • 5/5
      Insightful, academic, and at times hilarious overview of cannibalism among animals--including humans.
    • 4/5
      I don't read a lot of non-fiction books but for some reason as soon as I saw this book I knew I wanted to read it. I love learning about anything medical or science related so it was as surprising of a choice as you might think. I have always said that I read a little bit of everything and this book is proof positive of that fact. Cannibalism is a really interesting subject and I learned a lot while listening to this book. It was really an enjoyable experience.I have to admit that as soon as I saw this book, I started thinking about criminals who practice cannibalism. If you are looking for a book that chronicles the actions of serial killers, this probably isn't the book for you. There is a little bit of those kind of stories in this book but very few. The author actually makes a point to explain why he chose not to focus on criminals. This book instead deals with many other topics pertaining to cannibalism.If you are interested in learning about cannibalism in nature, look no further because this book is full of that kind of information. This books covers cannibalism in fish, birds, tadpoles, insects, and spiders. It discusses why it might be advantageous for animals to cannibalize others creatures of their own species sometimes including their own offspring. I can honestly say that I learned more about cannibalism in nature than I even knew that I wanted to know.I really enjoyed the sections of the book that involved human cannibalism. The very few sections that did discuss criminal cannibalism were very interesting. At the very beginning of the book, I learned that the book Psycho is based off a true story of a man that killed and cannibalized his victims. Survival cannibalism was another very interesting topic. I had never heard of the Donner party prior to listening to this book but I was captivated and saddened by their story. There is a section that discusses the eating of one's placenta, not something that I ever gave any thought to before this book but interesting nonetheless.I thought that Tom Perkins was the perfect narrator for this book. It almost felt as if I were listening to a nature show on television. His voice is exactly the kind of voice I think of when imagining the voice over sections in any nature program. This book had a lot of details and was full of information but I never tired of listening to it largely because of the narrator's skill. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the topic. It is a heavy subject but it is delivered in a very readable manner. There are a lot of details but it is presented in an entertaining manner. I was entertained and learned a few things. This is the first book by Bill Shutt that I have read but I would consider his work in the furture. I received a review copy of this book from HighBridge Audio via Audiobook Jukebox.
    • 5/5
      I've always had an interest in the macabre and dark and I a recent interest in biology and evolution and this book struck a chord with both of those things. Bill Schutt is an excellent, down-to-earth science write with a great and often delightfully nerdy sense of humor. This book felt like "A Walk in the Woods" except about Cannibalism. The book starts out with defining what counts as cannibalism and then goes into a lot of great detail about various forms of cannibalism in the animal kingdom. It covers the interesting biology and circumstances in which cannibalism is expressed from insects all the way up to mammals. It gives readers new cannibalistic horrors to consider, but also puts to bed a lot of myths about such maligned creatures as the praying mantis and the hampster. About halfway through the book the Bill Schutt switches to the topic of human cannibalism. What I loved most about this section was that it remained scientific and biological. I never once trailed off into sensationalism about certain serial killers or salacious recent events. Instead, in order to discuss human cannibalism without those elements the author focuses on The Donner Party and the Fore tribe in Papua New Ginuea. This approach allows readers to really consider the issue generally free from media knowledge of the events. It also protects the book from accusations of cashing in on lurid details of pop culture. The book closes with some discussions about how and when human cannibalism has reared it's head en-mass and how it could arise again and steps we might take to prevent it. While this section was accurate and good information, it did seem a bit out of scope or off kilter to the rest of the book, like maybe it was trying to get a little pop media cred. Anyway, I highly recommend this book. It's one that will go on my shelf next to The Moral Animal, A Walk in the Woods, and other great pop science books that I love.
    • 4/5
      Bill Schutt's "Cannibalism" is an engaging look at various manifestations of cannibalism, from tadpoles to mammals to humans. He looks at survival cannibalism, ritual cannibalism, and other forms,with a focus on breaking down the (often racist) myths about cannibalism among colonized societies, and trying to determine what actually might have happened. The book is enlightening, fun, and very readable, with a surprising amount of humor. However, Schutt is primarily a zoologist, not a writer, and that shows--the prose is sometimes clunky, and there are times when he jumps from one point to another without fully explaining the connection, making it hard to understand exactly what he's trying to say. But aside from those occasional issues, this is an interesting look at an often-misunderstood topic.
    • 4/5
      Bill has written an entertaining and educational book. He has researched the topic of cannibalism well and presents the material with humor. I enjoyed the book and learned a good deal about cannibalism. I recommend this book.
    • 4/5
      Very smart, funny, and compassionate. I knocked off a star because I didn't think mad cow disease / kuru warranted three separate chapters of its own, but otherwise it was an excellent read. (And the chapter on the Donners is called "The Worst Party Ever"; what isn't to love?)
    • 4/5
      This is a great book for the first 2/3 or so. Lots of juicy tidbits about cannibalism in the animal kingdom, including discussions about how this behavior fits into long term species survival. Interesting stuff. After hitting the animal world, the author starts exploring cannibalism among humans; it's pretty interesting to start, with a broad picture of how different "camps" view the existence (or not) of cannibalism in humanity. I was very surprised to learn about Chinese and European cannibalism in relatively modern times. I learned a lot and felt like this was a good read. Then the book degenerates into an overly long discussed about mad cow disease, Creutzfelt-Jacob Disease, and related concerns. While this was interesting and had a place in the book, in the end there was too much space devoted to a book that was, for the mostpart, focused in a slightly different direction. I finally skimmed the last 50 or so pages and was happy when it was done. This seems to be a common thing in non-fiction books: they start of strong and then draw out related-but-veering-off-topic material. Is it to make it more pages?I'd rather have fewer pages and more concise discussions.Overall, this was an interesting read. The writer is witty (and only occasionally annoyingly so...), the text approachable. I'd read more by him.(I received this book through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. My review has not been influenced by receipt of the book.)
    • 5/5
      Bill Schutt can explain to you the biologic sensibility of plankton feeding fish indiscriminately consuming juveniles of their own species; he can even explain why some tadpoles within a population develop into cannibalistic giants eating their own vegetarian kin. He's even willing to tackle questions up through the mammalian species. All of it is wrapped up in approachable writing and humor (well, less so in the sections about the Donner Party and about Europeans enslaving other populations, of course).Confronting cannibalism in Homo sapiens though is a deeper question than simply establishing that rats in some situations eat rats. Schutt even introduces an anthropologic school of thought that denies the history of cannibalism within human populations at all. He well explains the difficulties of the historic record and its origins, deftly demonstrating the likelihood and motivations for its manipulation.Yes, he does tackle the Donner Party, but he does so in the company of historians specifically investigating and refuting some earlier records of their history. He also addresses the modern (and possibly only modern) movement embracing placentaphagy. He even takes on questions of the definition of human cannibalism, its history in medical traditions of multiple cultures, and claims of its existence as a political and religious control tool.Finally, he wraps up questions of the anthropologic record and modern politics by covering the twentieth century phenomenon of kuru in the Fore people, mad cow disease, and vCJD in Britain. If the reader takes a step back and wraps their thoughts around this tangle, it's a fascinating record of epidemiology and anthropology taking us to the present day, with questions still unresolved about the role of prions and the likelihood of further disease phenomena.
    • 5/5
      People tend to think of cannibalism as something rare and weird and horrible. In fact, it’s pretty common. Pretty much every part of the animal world has cannibal species in it. We all know about the praying mantis female eating her mate, but lots of insects, spiders, fish, amphibians, and even mammals dine on either their spouse or their children. Sometimes the children eat the parents. Those mouth breeding fish? The ones where the male holds the brood of babies in their mouth while they mature? Yeah. Sometimes they get hungry and have a little snack. Mice eat their young in overcrowded conditions. Higher on the family tree, chimps and polar bears do it. Some sharks eat their siblings while they are still in the womb. Some creatures eat each other when there is food scarcity. Some creatures only eat parts of each other- there is one species that eats the lining of the mother’s uterus while still inside. But it’s not just critters. Humans perform cannibalism, too, and it’s not just the Donner party and Hannibal Lector. Sometimes it is a matter of survival, like the Donner party and the survivors of the airplane crash in the Andes. The people are already dead; they aren’t killing them for food; they are just taking advantage of what is there so they can survive. That’s not the only time humans eat each other, though. Sometimes it’s done to honor the beloved dead- sort of grokking their loved ones. Most often, though, people eat only parts of each other. In the past in Europe, there were many ‘cures’ that involved things like powdered skulls and the blood from a hanged man being ingested. These days, some women eat their own placenta after giving birth. Most don’t tend to think of these cast off bits of humanity as being parts of people, but they are. Then there is the issue of false accusations of cannibalism. It seems like an awful lot of indigenous people have been accused of this habit when they are inconvenient for conquerors. Want the tribe’s land? Just call them cannibals and it’s okay to kill them off; you’re just saving yourself from danger! It happened all over in the tropical American areas when the Spanish first came into the area. Biologist Schutt takes a fairly light hearted look at cannibalism. He deals in both data and anecdote; the prose is a fast and easy read. His style of dealing with taboo subject matter reminded me of Mary Roach (“Stiff” and others); a very readable overview of something with big squick value.
    • 4/5
      It's difficult to think of a book about devouring members of your own species as "fun," but that's the word that springs to mind when thinking back on my reading of Bill Schutt's book. About 40% of the book deals with non-human animals, the remainder with humanity, including a long chapter on the Donner party and two chapters on the varieties of prion diseases (like Mad Cow), although, surprisingly to me, he seems to side with a researcher who believes it's actually a viral disease and the prions are a side effect. He also tantalizingly throws out a theory that Neanderthals were done in by a prion disease. Anyway, it's clear the taboo against cannibalism is far from universal, and Schutt has written an interesting, accessible, and yes, fun book.
    • 5/5
      Zoologist Bill Schutt begins by looking at cannibalism in animals, from killer tadpoles to shark fetuses that eat each other in the womb (or, if you want to get super-technical about it, the oviduct). He explores questions like: what animals eat their own kind, and why, and how do we know? Then he turns to cannibalism in humans, which turns out to be an extremely murky subject, since accusing groups of people of cannibalism has long been a go-to slander for justifying treating them poorly or taking them as slaves, which makes it very hard to separate truth from fiction when it comes to historical cannibalism.The book covers a lot of ground, including such topics as mad cow disease and women who eat their own placentas, and features lots of weird and interesting facts. It's got a laudably scientific perspective, as Schutt refuses to take myths or received wisdom at face value, but always asks what the science is and what the scientific controversies are. The writing style is clear and engaging. And while things can get a bit gory, because of course they do, Schutt makes a deliberate point of not sensationalizing the subject.It seems just a little bit odd to say I really enjoyed a book about cannibalism. But, well. I really enjoyed this book about cannibalism.
    • 3/5
      What this book is: Zoologist Bill Schutt writes a mostly accessible "history" of cannibalism, discussing evidence of cannibalism in different animal species and the reasons it may occurs in humans. Certain stories such as the Donner Party and the Fore of New Zealand get more lengthy treatments. The book is a good introduction to the subject on an academic level for those interested in the topic but are concerned about the gore that can be attached to the subject. The book steers clear of sensationalism and even the illustrations are basic line drawings in a seeming attempt to calm the squeamish.What this book is not: This is a not a gore filled book about criminals Schutt makes clear that those books already exist. It is also not a history of pop culture or nuanced societal views on cannibalism. Besides the basic cannibalism can be good/bad, there is no moral discussion or mention of things such as Sweeney Todd except a passing remarks in the epilogue of Soylent Green.Summary: Schutt is accessible and interesting. He is sometimes humorous but fails far short of the charm and humor of Mary Roach. The last few chapters of the book which focus on the disease called kuru which may or may not be transmitted by eating humans seemed a bit diversion and not as accessible as the rest of the book but overall this is an interesting read that touches on random entries into the history of cannibalism in various species.
    • 5/5
      While not being overly squeamish about nutritional sources, upon receiving the book “Cannibalism” from LibraryThing, I was a bit reluctant to take the first bite. Once started, I could not put the book down. Bill Schutt explains the subject with detailed history, sometimes humorous personal stories, and numerous scientific facts, while constantly embellishing the presentation with clever one-liners. Extensive research coupled with interesting illustrations provide the reader a consuming understanding of cannibalism from diverse cultures and multiple species.I highly recommend “Cannibalism”, (the book, not so much the act), to those with interest in natural and human history, evolutionary behavior, social norms, and an unquenched curiosity.
    • 5/5
      There's some discussion of the recorded history of the practice, but Schutt is a zoologist, so the focus here is cannibalism in different species and the purpose for it. Examining frogs, insects, polar bears, monkeys and humans, Schutt explores the reasons why some resort to feeding on their own. In the matter of human cannibalism, he looks at some of the most infamous cases, such as the Donner Party, Leningrad and Mao's China. At first I wondered why the book contained very simple drawings of the carnivorous frogs, but I quickly realized the wisdom of this choice as the discussion went to larger species. Schutt does an excellent job at writing about the scientific facts, the tragic episodes, and the gruesome ones, without turning this into a gross book, which I think is a very fine line. This book is as approachable as a book about cannibalism gets. If you like Mary Roach, you may like this.
    • 5/5
      Fascinating, if at times vaguely sick making, book. I appreciated the focus on the natural world and anthropological and historical cannibalism and a restraint from the sensation criminal cannibal cases. it is definitely a popular history/science sort of book which made for good bus reading.
    • 4/5
      Cannibalism is a thoroughly engaging, interesting, informative book about a subject badly in need f clarification. Schuss explores cannibalism in insects, sea life, birds, and various land animals, including (of course) humans. He is a trained biologist, careful with the evidence and with conjectures in the absence of evidence. He consults anthropologists, biologists, evolutionists, and other experts and presents their findings and conjectures. But the book is not stiffly academic or directed at professional scientists. Instead it reads like a series of lectures for undergraduates, full of information and thus though-provoking, but also witty and entertaining. I like it.
    • 4/5
      Zoologist Bill Schutt looks at cannibalism from an evolutionary point of view and finds that there are times when eating members of one's own species a certain amount of sense. Cannibalism is a common behavior at all levels of the food chain; invertebrates eat their relatives because they have no way of recognizing which organisms belong to their own kind and which do not. Veribrates are more likely to engage in cannibalism when threatened with starvation or other environmental stressors. There is evidence of humans performing ritual cannibalism for a variety of reasons, but often accounts of people eating people are distorted or exaggerated. Schutt is indefatigable in his pursuit of his subject. He examines the historical and anthropological records, interviews academic experts, and even, in the name of science, chows down on a cooked human placenta. He avoids sensationalism and does a good job of explaining the role of cannibalism in the animal world. As he says, it's "perfectly natural". Recommended for science-minded readers.