Eric Baratay, Animal Biographies: Toward a History of Individuals, trans., Lindsay Turner, (University of Georgia Press, 2022), 240.

Eric Baratay, Animal Biographies: Toward a History of Individuals, trans., Lindsay Turner, (University of Georgia Press, 2022), 240.

What if we could learn about history from the perspective of animals? The English translation of Éric Baratay's book "Animal Biographies" (Biographies Animales: Des Vies Retrouvées) by the University of Georgia Press introduces us to fascinating animals from around the world in the 19th  and 20th centuries, making them the main focus of the book. The book was originally published in France in 2017.

The book "Animal Biographies" offers a unique perspective on the lives of animals. It is divided into 4 chapters, each showcasing the experiences of different species. What sets this scientific project apart from more literary texts, such as Comtesse de Ségur's "Mémoires d'un âne" or Virginia Woolf's "Flush," is the method used. According to Baratay, the biographies in this book reject tokenistic anthropomorphism and avoid overstatements, presenting only aspects recorded by contemporaries without adding anything to them.

For instance, in the captivating story of the giraffe's journey from Africa to Paris as a gift to Charles X, details about the giraffe's life in Africa before the journey are omitted due to the brevity and vagueness of the available documents. Baratay suggests that at this point, we should dream in a controlled manner, allowing ourselves to move away from the center and toward the animal side, partially making ourselves animals.

Baratay, who opposes classical anthropocentric historiography, emphasizes in this work the necessity of considering animals as historical agents and telling their stories as agents of history in a way that acknowledges their experiences. After all, history is not and cannot be solely the domain of humans; animals have their own history, too.

As the reader delves into this book, they will encounter captivating stories about Modestine, the donkey of Robert Louis Stevenson in the Alps, and Warrior, the horse from World War I made famous by Steven Spielberg's War Horse. These stories provide insight into the personal characteristics and experiences of these animals, offering a valuable perspective that challenges the human-centered focus of traditional historiography.