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In this revised and expanded edition of a seminal and award-winning exploration of animal emotion, sentience, and cognition, a prominent animal researcher discusses and incorporates the surge of new science in a fascinating and vital field of study.
When award-winning scientist Marc Bekoff penned the first edition of The Emotional Lives of Animals in 2007, he predicted that in twenty years' time our understanding of animal cognition and emotion would be "richer, more accurate, and possibly different". This turned out to be an understatement. Not only has the field seen an explosion of new and startling research, but the popular appetite for this research has grown as well, spawning podcasts, countless articles, and bestselling books from Frans de Waal, Carl Safina, and Ed Yong, among others.
Based on Bekoff's years of studying social communication in a wide range of species, this book was one of the first to establish the rich emotional lives of animals. Bekoff skillfully blends extraordinary stories of animal joy, empathy, grief, embarrassment, anger, and love with the latest scientific research confirming the existence of emotions that common sense and experience have long implied. Filled with light humour and touching stories, The Emotional Lives of Animals is a clarion call for reassessing both how we view and how we treat animals.
Marc Bekoff, professor emeritus of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, has published more than thirty books and writes the Animal Emotions blog for Psychology Today. He has won many awards for his research on animal behavior, animal emotions (cognitive ethology), compassionate conservation, and animal protection; has worked closely with Jane Goodall; and is a former Guggenheim Fellow. He also works with inmates at the Boulder County Jail. In June 2022 Bekoff was recognized as a Hero by the Academy of Dog Trainers. He lives in Boulder, Colorado.
Jane Goodall is a world-renowned conservationist and animal advocate.
"A work of rare beauty and insight."
– Best Friends
"Demonstrating the far-reaching implications for readers' relationships with any number of living beings, Bekoff's book is profound, thought-provoking, and even touching."
– Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"I firmly believe that the more we care for the happiness of others, the greater our own sense of well-being becomes. Therefore, I welcome Marc Bekoff's book The Emotional Lives of Animals."
– His Holiness the Dalai Lama
"Marc Bekoff ably presents the richness and variety of the emotions in nonhuman animals – and doesn't hesitate to draw the ethical conclusions implicit in his findings. I hope this book will be widely read by those who care about animals – and even more widely by those who don't."
– Peter Singer, professor of bioethics, Princeton University
"Combining careful scientific methodology with intuition and common sense, this book will be a great tool for those who are struggling to improve the lives of animals in environments where, so often, there is an almost total lack of understanding."
– Jane Goodall, from the foreword
