Marcy Norton, The Tame and the Wild: People and Animals After 1492, (Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2024), 438.

Marcy Norton, The Tame and the Wild: People and Animals After 1492, (Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2024), 438.

In this book, Marcy Norton delves into the elaborate exploration of the after-effects of the

colonization of the Americas. Her focus shifts between comparing the lifestyles of Native Americans and Europeans, particularly toward nonhuman animals. The colonization not only familiarized those groups with each others’ approaches but also reshaped societies and influenced zoological science and our modern views on pets. 

Norton thoroughly explains her research in three parts and eleven chapters, each concentrating on a specific aspect of Native Americans’ and Europeans’ relationships with nonhuman animals. The first part of the book, Subject and Object, consists of three chapters and introduces the historical shifts in non-human animals’ treatment. This part discusses hunting practices as catalyzers of the human-animal bonds, the utilization of animals in the context of husbandry practices in late 15th century Spain, and the emergence of slaughterhouses. The latter became intertwined with slavery and theft from Indigenous and Black communities. Further on, we move on to the second part of the book, Tame and Wild, consisting of four chapters. It focuses on the Indigenous people’s hunting rituals, their similarities with Europeans’ ways of raising livestock, and the relationship between humans and nonhuman animals in Mesoamerican societies.

The author highlights sacrificial rituals, the absorption of prey, and the interconnectedness of all beings. The third and final part of the book, Entanglements, consists of four chapters as well. In this part, Marcy Norton delves into the European missionary concepts based on the accusations of Indigenous people shape-shifting into animals, which later on led to the forceful adoption of European ways of hunting and domesticating animals. Further on, the author explains the animals’ transformation into loyal human companions and introduces Francisco Hernandez’s scientific work, Historiae Animalium, which played one of the most crucial roles in shaping zoological science.

The central argument of the book is based on humans’ and nonhuman animals’ relationship. Marcy Norton highlights the importance of the knowledge of history in challenging modern practices of animal exploitation, as well as the recognition of animal agency. She uses ethological, historical, ethnographical, and environmental studies, supporting her arguments from archival documents and texts.

The author created an extensive work on the human-animal relationship, highlighting the viciousness humans deliberately have been inflicting on animals for centuries and exposing the various ways humans have been using to justify their cruel actions. In my opinion, it is a book worth reading that has the potential to change humans’ perception of animals to one that is less exploitative and more empathetic.