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From antiquity to the nineteenth century, the royal hunt was a vital component of the political cultures of the Middle East, India, Central Asia, and China. Besides marking elite status, royal hunts functioned as inspection tours and imperial progresses, a means of asserting kingly authority over the countryside. The hunt was, in fact, the "court out-of-doors," an open-air theater for displays of majesty, the entertainment of guests, and the bestowal of favor on subjects. In the conduct of interstate relations, great hunts were used to train armies, show the flag, and send diplomatic signals. Wars sometimes began as hunts and ended as celebratory chases. Often understood as a kind of covert military training, the royal hunt was subject to the same strict discipline as that applied in war and was also a source of innovation in military organization and tactics. Just as human subjects were to recognize royal power, so was the natural kingdom brought within the power structure by means of the royal hunt. Hunting parks were centers of botanical exchange, military depots, early conservation reserves, and important links in local ecologies. The mastery of the king over nature served an important purpose in official renderings: as a manifestation of his possession of heavenly good fortune he could tame the natural world and keep his kingdom safe from marauding threats, human or animal. The exchanges of hunting partners—cheetahs, elephants, and even birds—became diplomatic tools as well as serving to create an elite hunting culture that transcended political allegiances and ecological frontiers. This sweeping comparative work ranges from ancient Egypt to India under the Raj. With a magisterial command of contemporary sources, literature, material culture, and archaeology, Thomas T. Allsen chronicles the vast range of traditions surrounding this fabled royal occupation.
This study assesses the significance of the hunting cult as a major element of the imperial experience in Africa and Asia. Through a study of the game laws and the beginnings of conservation in the 19th and early-20th centuries, the author demonstrates the racial inequalities which existed between Europeans and indigenous hunters. Africans were denied access to game, and the development of game reserves and national parks accelerated this process. Indigenous hunters in Africa and India were turned into "poachers" and only Europeans were permitted to hunt. In India, the hunting of animals became the chief recreation of military officers and civilian officials, a source of display and symbolic dominance of the environment. Imperial hunting fed the natural history craze of the day, and many hunters collected trophies and specimens for private and public collections as well as contributing to hunting literature. Adopting a radical approach to issues of conservation, this book links the hunting cult in Africa and India to the development of conservation, and consolidates widely-scattered material on the importance of hunting to the economics and nutrition of African societies.
As thrilling as any novel, as taut and exciting as any adventure story, Peter Hathaway Capstick’s Death in the Long Grass takes us deep into the heart of darkness to view Africa through the eyes of one of the most renowned professional hunters. Few men can say they have known Africa as Capstick has known it—leading safaris through lion country; tracking man-eating leopards along tangled jungle paths; running for cover as fear-maddened elephants stampede in all directions. And of the few who have known this dangerous way of life, fewer still can recount their adventures with the flair of this former professional hunter-turned-writer. Based on Capstick’s own experiences and the personal accounts of his colleagues, Death in the Long Grassportrays the great killers of the African bush—not only the lion, leopard, and elephant, but the primitive rhino and the crocodile waiting for its unsuspecting prey, the titanic hippo and the Cape buffalo charging like an express train out of control. Capstick was a born raconteur whose colorful descriptions and eye for exciting, authentic detail bring us face to face with some of the most ferocious killers in the world—underrated killers like the surprisingly brave and cunning hyena, silent killers such as the lightning-fast black mamba snake, collective killers like the wild dog. Readers can lean back in a chair, sip a tall, iced drink, and revel in the kinds of hunting stories Hemingway and Ruark used to hear in hotel bars from Nairobi to Johannesburg, as veteran hunters would tell of what they heard beyond the campfire and saw through the sights of an express rifle.
Recreational hunting has long been a controversial issue. Is it a threat to biodiversity or can it be a tool for conservation, giving value to species and habitats that might otherwise be lost? Are the moral objections to hunting for pleasure well founded? Does recreational hunting support rural livelihoods in developing countries, or are these benefits exaggerated by proponents? For the first time, this book addresses many of the issues that are fundamental to an understanding of the real role of recreational hunting in conservation and rural development. It examines the key issues, asks the difficult questions, and seeks to present the answers to guide policy. Where the answers are not available, it highlights gaps in our knowledge and lays out the research agenda for the next decade.
Since its inception, paleoanthropology has been closely wedded to the idea that big-game hunting by our hominin ancestors arose, first and foremost, as a means for acquiring energy and vital nutrients. This assumption has rarely been questioned, and seems intuitively obvious—meat is a nutrient-rich food with the ideal array of amino acids, and big animals provide meat in large, convenient packages. Through new research, the author of this volume provides a strong argument that the primary goals of big-game hunting were actually social and political—increasing hunter’s prestige and standing—and that the nutritional component was just an added bonus. Through a comprehensive, interdisciplinary research approach, the author examines the historical and current perceptions of protein as an important nutrient source, the biological impact of a high-protein diet and the evidence of this in the archaeological record, and provides a compelling reexamination of this long-held conclusion. This volume will be of interest to researchers in Archaeology, Evolutionary Biology, and Paleoanthropology, particularly those studying diet and nutrition.
Spine title: 1995 Gun digest.
Emphasizes the disturbing consequences poaching and trafficking pose globally in terms of both biodiversity and public health
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