Animal Internet - by Alexander Pschera (Paperback)

About the Book

A bold and surprising exploration of how a new digital revolution will transform human ties with the natural world.

Book Synopsis

"Bold and fascinating ... A truly thought-provoking book for animal lovers and technology enthusiasts alike."-Kirkus Reviews

A bestial Brave New World is on the horizon: Some fifty thousand creatures around the globe--including whales, leopards, flamingoes, bats, and snails--are being equipped with digital tracking devices. The data gathered and studied by major scientific institutes about their behavior will warn us about tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, but also radically transform our relationship to the natural world. With a broad cultural and historical perspective, this book examines human ties with animals, from domestic pets to the soaring popularity of bird watching and kitten images on the Web. Will millennia of exploration soon be reduced to experiencing wilderness via smartphone? Contrary to pessimistic fears, author Alexander Pschera sees the Internet as creating a historic opportunity for a new dialogue between man and nature.

Foreword by Martin Wikelski, Director, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology. The book includes an index.

Alexander Pschera, born in 1964, has published several books on the internet and media. He studied German, music, and philosophy at Heidelberg University. He lives near Munich where he writes for the German magazine Cicero as well as for German radio.

Review Quotes

Excerpted in Scientific American

"Pschera reflects on the significance of the 'digital revolution' in wildlife ecology-the recent explosion of small, relatively inexpensive cameras and satellite tracking devices that have allowed humans to follow animal movements ... He argues persuasively that the 'animal internet' is full of possibilities for interspecies communication ... As Pschera speculates, technological access to animals' lives may, ironically, restore our sensory access to them."-The New York Review of Books

"Charts the new digital frontier in the human-animal relationship. Gone are the days of an untouched natural world. We have entered wilderness 2.0 ... [An] intriguing book."--The Washington Post

"Bold and fascinating ... proposing that the Internet--and other digital technology--offers an opportunity to rediscover our animals as more than abstracted images but as autonomous individuals with inherent value. A truly thought-provoking book for animal lovers and technology enthusiasts alike."--Kirkus Reviews

"This surprising book offers a great shout-out to the next phase in our relationship with non-human beings: our brand-newly emerging recognition that they, too, are individuals, leading individual lives."
--Carl Safina, author of Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel and Song for the Blue Ocean

"At last, a convincing explanation for why waldrapps are on Twitter and quolls on Facebook. In beautiful, philosophical prose, Alexander Pschera even explains why cats rule the Internet. The first book that brings nature and technology together with animals as individuals and streams of big data alike."--David Rothenberg, author of Bug Music and Survival of the Beautiful

"Animal Internet is a most important book. This excellent work could be a strong catalyst for people ... to reconnect and become re-enchanted with all sorts of mysterious and fascinating animals, both local and distant. By shrinking the world it will bring humans and other animals together in a multitude of ways that only a few years ago were unimaginable."
--Marc Bekoff, University of Colorado, author of Rewilding Our Hearts: Building Pathways of Compassion and Coexistence

"Humanized pets, industrialized meat, endless sad extinctions: Must our animal future be so bleak? Not according to Alexander Pschera, who envisions humans and wild animals interacting on matters like climate change and conservation through electronic tracking. A fascinating account full of novel and unexpected examples." --Richard W. Bulliet, author of Hunters, Herders and Hamburgers: The Past and Future of Human-Animal Relationships and Professor of History Emeritus, Columbia University

"Pschera, an expert on the Internet, media, and philosophy, attentively contemplates and justly criticizes postmodernist efforts to go 'back to nature.' He explores both the causes and effects of man's severing from the natural world. He notes the ways in which the very attempts meant to protect the natural world actually harm our relationship with it and further distance us from it."-The Literary Review

"An original book that goes against the trend to stubbornly keep nature and technology divided from one another."--Der Spiegel

"Animal Internet is one of the most interesting books that I've read in recent years."--Bavarian Radio

"What Pschera describes sounds futuristic but it's already widespread reality . . . Pschera's book is not just popular science: he describes not only the status quo, but also thinks about an ongoing transformation."--Wired.de

About the Author

Alexander Pschera, born in 1964, has published several books on the Internet and media. He studied German, music and philosophy at Heidelberg University. He lives near Munich where he writes for the German magazine Cicero as well as for German radio.

Elisabeth Lauffer is the recipient of the 2014 Gutekunst Translation Prize. After graduating from Wesleyan University she lived in Berlin and then obtained a master's in education from Harvard. She now lives in Vermont, where she is the Assistant Director of the Middlebury-Monterey Language Academy.