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Animal Series
Moose
Its hooves were supposedly a cure for epilepsy; it is the mascot of the Seattle Mariners baseball team and the clothing company Abercrombie & Fitch; and its meat is a delicacy. The moose is a fascinating but elusive animal of the north, and its little-known natural history is the focus of Kevin Jackson’s engaging new book.
Moose explains moose’s biological history and describes its natural environments around the world, including Canada, New England, Alaska, and Scandinavia, where the moose is the national animal of Sweden and Norway. Jackson considers why the moose is really an elk and an elk is a wapiti, and he also looks at the controversy behind the naming of the Irish Elk. Moose explores the animal’s role in human history since the Stone Age, including the “alces” in Julius Caesar’s history of the Gallic Wars and its influence on figures such as poet Ted Hughes and Theodore Roosevelt and his Bull Moose Party. The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show , a 150-foot statue being built in Sweden, and colorful moose lore all appear in this wide-ranging study, making this an essential read for naturalists and moose lovers alike.
Moose explains moose’s biological history and describes its natural environments around the world, including Canada, New England, Alaska, and Scandinavia, where the moose is the national animal of Sweden and Norway. Jackson considers why the moose is really an elk and an elk is a wapiti, and he also looks at the controversy behind the naming of the Irish Elk. Moose explores the animal’s role in human history since the Stone Age, including the “alces” in Julius Caesar’s history of the Gallic Wars and its influence on figures such as poet Ted Hughes and Theodore Roosevelt and his Bull Moose Party. The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show , a 150-foot statue being built in Sweden, and colorful moose lore all appear in this wide-ranging study, making this an essential read for naturalists and moose lovers alike.
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
98 people want to read
About the author
Kevin Jackson
105 books16 followersThere is more than one author with this name in the Goodreads database.
Kevin Jackson's childhood ambition was to be a vampire but instead he became the last living polymath. His colossal expertise ranged from Seneca to Sugababes, with a special interest in the occult, Ruskin, take-away food, Dante's Inferno and the moose. He was the author of numerous books on numerous subjects, including Fast: Feasting on the Streets of London (Portobello 2006), and reviewed regularly for the Sunday Times.
From: http://portobellobooks.com/3014/Kevin...
Kevin Jackson was an English writer, broadcaster and filmmaker.
He was educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge. After teaching in the English Department of Vanderbilt University, Nashville, he joined the BBC, first as a producer in radio and then as a director of short documentaries for television. In 1987 he was recruited to the Arts pages of The Independent. He was a freelance writer from the early 1990s and was a regular contributor to BBC radio discussion programmes.
Jackson often collaborated on projects in various media: with, among others, the film-maker Kevin Macdonald, with the cartoonist Hunt Emerson, with the musician and composer Colin Minchin (with whom he wrote lyrics for the rock opera Bite); and with the songwriter Peter Blegvad.
Jackson appears, under his own name, as a semi-fictional character in Iain Sinclair's account of a pedestrian journey around the M25, London Orbital.
Adapted from Wikipedia
Kevin Jackson's childhood ambition was to be a vampire but instead he became the last living polymath. His colossal expertise ranged from Seneca to Sugababes, with a special interest in the occult, Ruskin, take-away food, Dante's Inferno and the moose. He was the author of numerous books on numerous subjects, including Fast: Feasting on the Streets of London (Portobello 2006), and reviewed regularly for the Sunday Times.
From: http://portobellobooks.com/3014/Kevin...
Kevin Jackson was an English writer, broadcaster and filmmaker.
He was educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge. After teaching in the English Department of Vanderbilt University, Nashville, he joined the BBC, first as a producer in radio and then as a director of short documentaries for television. In 1987 he was recruited to the Arts pages of The Independent. He was a freelance writer from the early 1990s and was a regular contributor to BBC radio discussion programmes.
Jackson often collaborated on projects in various media: with, among others, the film-maker Kevin Macdonald, with the cartoonist Hunt Emerson, with the musician and composer Colin Minchin (with whom he wrote lyrics for the rock opera Bite); and with the songwriter Peter Blegvad.
Jackson appears, under his own name, as a semi-fictional character in Iain Sinclair's account of a pedestrian journey around the M25, London Orbital.
Adapted from Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 4, 2023
an amoosing addition to the literature
As I ruminated before a shelf of books put out by a British publisher on various animals, I pondered which of them I should choose. I had read books on antelope and others of that elk. I took Kevin Jackson's work because I knew very little about moose, and up to 2013, had never seen one in the wild, much to my chagrin. I bought MOOSE and brought it home, hoping I had not made a moose-take. No, this is a short, succinct, lightly serious, whole-earth moose book with all kinds of interesting information about Alces alces, the well-known inhabitant of northern forests and beloved character of a well-known TV show.
Clearing up some confoosion about European and North American names, the author moves on to show how information about the moose in Europe slowly jelled into an accurate picture over the centuries. The moose was the (unwilling) savior of early pioneering efforts in the north, providing food for Indians, explorers, Catholic priests, and Hudson Bay trappers. One writer is quoted as saying that in those northern regions "human existence essentially depended on the moose". In Siberia, if the moose-riding locals could outrun Cossacks on horses, then their existence depended on moose too. Various legends about them, as well as efforts to tame them provide more items of interest. The volume is profusely illustrated with all kinds of fascinating drawings, emblems and photos and contains sections on the early 20th century Bull Moose Party, "the moose in literature", in art, advertising, and the media. Bullwinkle definitely gets a mention. In short, if you ever wanted to know about moose, but were afraid to ask---or maybe---didn't know where to ask, you have come to the right place. Just don't hope for chocolate "moose", OK ?
As I ruminated before a shelf of books put out by a British publisher on various animals, I pondered which of them I should choose. I had read books on antelope and others of that elk. I took Kevin Jackson's work because I knew very little about moose, and up to 2013, had never seen one in the wild, much to my chagrin. I bought MOOSE and brought it home, hoping I had not made a moose-take. No, this is a short, succinct, lightly serious, whole-earth moose book with all kinds of interesting information about Alces alces, the well-known inhabitant of northern forests and beloved character of a well-known TV show.
Clearing up some confoosion about European and North American names, the author moves on to show how information about the moose in Europe slowly jelled into an accurate picture over the centuries. The moose was the (unwilling) savior of early pioneering efforts in the north, providing food for Indians, explorers, Catholic priests, and Hudson Bay trappers. One writer is quoted as saying that in those northern regions "human existence essentially depended on the moose". In Siberia, if the moose-riding locals could outrun Cossacks on horses, then their existence depended on moose too. Various legends about them, as well as efforts to tame them provide more items of interest. The volume is profusely illustrated with all kinds of fascinating drawings, emblems and photos and contains sections on the early 20th century Bull Moose Party, "the moose in literature", in art, advertising, and the media. Bullwinkle definitely gets a mention. In short, if you ever wanted to know about moose, but were afraid to ask---or maybe---didn't know where to ask, you have come to the right place. Just don't hope for chocolate "moose", OK ?
November 25, 2019
Not a scientific study of Moose.
November 1, 2011
It's hard to keep reviewing Reaktion books, because they're all essentially the same, even if they are all fun to read. Short, nice pictures, maybe a little sparse. I like moose, so I like this book.
January 24, 2014
A small and rich book about an influential yet unusual animal: this natural history of the moose presents the cultural meaning of this charismatic herbivore and the sometimes unusual perception we have of it.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews