On Simon’s Ark
The animals catalogued in Simon Barnes’s book all have stories to tell, but put together, they fail to satisfy our craving for the big picture
One of the animals Simon Barnes, novelist, wildlife writer and sports journalist, uses to tell a story in The History of the World in 100 Animals is the egret, which we learn can be any one of over a dozen species in the heron family. We are told in passing that the white, still-standing birds blend in with the sky when seen from the perspective of a fish under water—which is then further misled into thinking of the bird’s dangling yellow foot as potential prey. But Barnes’s main point involves humans. In the late 19th century, egrets were being killed in large numbers for their breeding plumage, which was in demand in the US and Europe as a decorative element in women’s hats. This led two pairs of women, one in the US and one in England, to start a movement that grew into important conservation organisations, becoming perhaps “the first people to realise that the Earth’s resources were not, after all, infinite”.
Like the egret, several of the hundred animals here—endangered, lost or brought back from the verge—become ways to talk about events or achievements of significance to wildlife conservation. The mosquito leads to DDT to Rachel Carson and the beginning of the environmental movement. Some animals are included largely because they played a part in scientific discoveries—the fruit fly, Darwin’s Galapagos mockingbirds. Several others find a place here—the Tyrannosaurus Rex, the lion, bats, polar bears—by virtue of generally having made a powerful impression on human imagination. There are animals—the dog, cattle, sheep, goats, horse—that allow Barnes to speak of domestication, cultivation, the beginning of civilisation, conquest and other aspects of the human past, but this is done in a largely undirected fashion.
Reading this book in India, a lot of its cultural references feel more solid when they are from Europe or North America. The Ramayana is referenced in relation to the deer, monkey and the crane. Valmiki is outraged by the hunting of mating cranes and finds “a form of verse called solka [sic]”. In the chapter on the elephant ,we are told that Indian train drivers who collide with elephants are provided counselling “for they have killed god”. This isn’t egregious, but it isn’t particularly reassuring either and makes one wonder if references from Japan, China or Africa should be taken at face value.
The book has many virtues. It is richly illustrated and handsomely produced. It is encyclopaedic in its dredging up of references to animals in epics, treatises, paintings, songs and films. It’s a storehouse of trivia and confirms or corrects many commonly-held beliefs: piranhas aren’t as ravenous as they are made out to be, elephants do remember, dodos weren’t hunted to extinction after all. Barnes’s experiences with wildlife across the world add a welcome personal touch to these hundred short essays. But for all this, it must be said that the book does not nearly amount to a history of the world.
The book uses several animals to talk about events of significance to wildlife conservation