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A stunningly original exploration of the beautiful, ancient, successful, astoundingly accomplished, largely unknown, and unfathomably different species with which we share this world. For as long as humans have been here, insects have been here. Yet we hardly know them, not even the ones we're closest to: the insects that eat our food, share our beds, live in our homes. Organizing his book alphabetically, with one entry for each letter, weaving together brief vignettes, meditations, and extended essays, Hugh Raffles uses the prism of history and science, anthropology and travel, economics and popular culture to show how insects have triggered our obsessions, stirred our fears, and beguiled our imaginations.
Raffles provides a glimpse into the ritualized world of Chinese cricket fighting, the deceptive courtship rituals of the dance fly, the vital and vicious role locusts play in the famines that afflict the African continent, the queer sexual practices among insects, the obsession of Japan's entire culture with insects, how insects deformed by Chernobyl inspired art, and how our unease with insects has prompted aberrant behavior of our own. Deftly combining the anecdotal and the scientific, Raffles has given us an essential book of reference that is, as well, a fascination of the highest order.
Hugh Raffles teaches anthropology at The New School. He is the author of In Amazonia: A Natural History, which received the Victor Turner Prize in Ethnographic Writing. His essays have appeared in Best American Essays, Granta, and Orion. Insectopedia is the recipient of a Special Award for Extending Ethnographic Understanding from the Society for Humanistic Anthropology. In 2009, he received a Whiting Writers' Award. He lives in New York City.
"A collection of imaginative forays into what, for most readers, will be terra incognita [...] Insectopedia qualifies as food for thought [...] As inventive and wide ranging and full of astonishing surprises as the vast insect world itself. Raffles takes us on a delirious journey."
– The New York Times
"Impossible to categorize, wildly stimulating [...] A disconcerting, fantastical, (multi-)eye-opening journey into another existence."
– The New York Times Book Review
"Vivid and fascinating [...] This book will challenge your view of insects and make you see these wonderful creatures from a new perspective."
– New Scientist
"As Raffles shows our nearby neighbors to be at once dangerous and beautiful, common and incomprehensible, he refracts a world that is newly fascinating."
– Audubon Magazine (Editors' Choice)
"[A] big, beautiful testament to the glory of paying attention."
– The Boston Globe
"The coolest, most beautifully written book on bugs imaginable."
– San Francisco Chronicle
"Sings with scholarship, deft writing, and an authentic fascination with the six-legged creatures that have so long roamed the Earth."
– Seed Magazine
"Combines elements of science, history, travel and popular culture to form a sparkling whole, a wide-ranging and idiosyncratic survey of a world we all too often scorn or swat [...] [Raffles] reminds us of the connections among all creatures, of the unfathomable mysteries that separate us, and of the fragility and resilience of life."
– The Providence Journal
"A revelation of the world of our fellow creatures [...] by a writer whose style is equal to his huge and strange task."
– Buffalo News (Editor's Choice)
"Unusual and most engaging."
– The Seattle Times
"Provocative [...] Insectopedia opens up a can of worms and it's doubtful they can be herded back in."
– Santa Cruz Sentinel
"Lucid and often beautifully constructed prose [...] We can't recommend it highly enough."
– Austin Chronicle
"The most readable book ever written about insects."
– The Stranger
"Gorgeous, fascinating, and thought-provoking [...] A stunning, sensitively written, insightful book [...] Raffles set out to write a book about how people learn something new about themselves through relationships with insects, and he succeeded admirably."
– Bookslut
"Though the title suggests a Latin-heavy lexicon of insects from aphids to wolf spiders, anthropologist Raffles (In Amazonia) takes a decidedly different approach in his erudite and entertaining paean to bugs. Some chapters focus on nations: the paradox that in Niger, where crops are regularly ravaged by locusts, that very scourgewhen salted and fried or boiled like shrimpis also a protein staple; the craze in Japan for stag and rhinoceros beetles as pets; and the revival of a Chinese traditionnow televisedof crickets locking jaws with the ferocity of fighting dogs. Other sections feature individuals who have dedicated their lives to the contemplation of insects, e.g., the Austrian painter Cornelia Hesse-Honegger, who draws inspiration from radiation-deformed leaf bugs. One short chapter considers same-sex behavior (interspecies ass play); a longer one studies the crush-freaks who fetishize the close-up sight and amplified sound of bugs being crushed by women's feet. Raffles' eclectic examination of our diverse reactions to bugs, ranging from scholarly and aesthetic awe to revulsion or phobia, is an enthralling hodgepodge of historical fact, anthropological observation, and scientific insight."
– Publishers Weekly
"Let's be clear: this volume is not an encyclopedia. It is an assemblage of 26 offbeat – some might say bizarre – and highly original essays and philosophical musings by anthropology professor Raffles (In Amazonia: A Natural History) in which insects are metaphors for the human condition. Chapters, one for each letter of the alphabet, are two to 42 pages long. From "Air", "Beauty", and "Chernobyl" through "Ex Libris, Exempla", "Yearnings", and "Zen and the Art of Zzz's", these fascinating, sometimes disturbing effusions dare us to come face-to-face with ourselves, human society, the vast complexity of insects, and our proper place in the mosaic of life on this planet. Written in a scholarly yet lyrical style, peppered with black-and-white illustrations and photographs, and backed up by 41 pages of "Notes" and annotated references arranged by chapter, this is sure to amuse, educate, raise our hackles, unveil our guilt, and leave us to ponder just who we think we are anyway. VERDICT: For inquisitive adults seeking a mind trip outside the box."
– Annette Aiello, Smithsonian Tropical Research Inst., Ancn, Panama, for Library Journal, 02/01/2010
