Reviews
of books by Hugh Raffles
HUGH RAFFLES is Professor of Anthropology at the New School for Social Research, Eugene Lang College, New York.
Insectopedia
by Hugh Raffles
Pantheon, 2010
Insects belong to the most successful group of animals that has ever evolved (the arthropods) and we have a very interesting and sometimes complicated relationship with them. They help pollinate our crops (bees), they eat them (caterpillars), we eat them (sometimes). We consider them beautiful and ugly, friendly and disgusting. Yet, they show us, if nothing else, the resilience life has to offer in the face of disaster. We try to eradicate them from our homes, yet they keep coming back, and back and back. They are the poster children of menacing aliens, they have funny sex lives, they buzz in our ears and still we use them for our research and in our literature to express emotions that otherwise would have to left unspoken.
March 25, 2010 / © 2010 Lukas K. Buehler / go back to Book Review Home