For as long as cats have coexisted with humans, they have been feared, revered, and respected. They appear as dynamic hunters in Paleolithic carvings and cave paintings; were venerated as gods in ancient Egypt; and still have the power to fascinate and frighten us, as the popularity of Joe Exotic, the self- styled Tiger King, shows. How did we go from hunting, and being hunted by, cats to keeping them as pets in our homes?
In this wide-ranging and captivating history, archaeologist Jerry Moore charts their journey from the African plains of the Pleistocene through the first human settlements in the Near East and on to ships setting sail for the Americas. What emerges is a complex picture of mutual domestication: cats chose to live with us as much as we chose to live with them, and as our growing cities bring the world’s wild cats into closer contact with humans, we must learn new ways to live together.
