Coyote America, Dan Flores
Coyote America, Dan Flores
List: $19.95 | Sale: $13.97
Club: $9.97

Coyote America
A Natural and Supernatural History

Author: Dan Flores

Narrator: Elijah Alexander

Unabridged: 8 hr 51 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/04/2016

Synopsis

With its uncanny night howls, unrivaled ingenuity, and amazing resilience, the coyote is the stuff of legends. In Indian folktales it often appears as a deceptive trickster or a sly genius. But legends don’t come close to capturing the incredible survival story of the coyote. As soon as Americans—especially white Americans—began ranching and herding in the West, they began working to destroy the coyote. Despite campaigns of annihilation employing poisons, gases, helicopters, and engineered epidemics, coyotes didn’t just survive, they thrived, expanding across the continent from Anchorage, Alaska, to New York’s Central Park. In the war between humans and coyotes, coyotes have won hands-down.Coyote America is both an environmental and a deep natural history of the coyote. It traces both the five-million-year-long biological story of an animal that has become the “wolf” in our backyards, as well as its cultural evolution from a preeminent spot in Native American religions to the hapless foil of the Road Runner. A deeply American tale, the story of the coyote in the American West and beyond is a sort of Manifest Destiny in reverse, with a pioneering hero whose career holds up an uncanny mirror to the successes and failures of American expansionism.An illuminating biography of this extraordinary animal, Coyote America isn’t just the story of an animal’s survival—it is one of the great epics of our time.

About Dan Flores

Dan Flores is an American writer and historian who specializes in cultural and environmental studies of the American West. He is the author of numerous books on aspects of western United States history and was the A. B. Hammond Professor Emeritus of Western History at the University of Montana until he retired in 2014. Flores lives just outside Santa Fe, New Mexico.

About Elijah Alexander

Elijah Alexander has worked professionally as an actor for over fifteen years. He has worked and lived in New York, where he performed in numerous productions, including the Tony Award–winning play Metamorphoses. He worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company for two years and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for two seasons, as well as regionally at various other theaters. In Los Angeles, he has worked on critically acclaimed productions of Sleuth, produced by Garry Marshall, and other works. His film and television credits include Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Emily’s Reasons Why Not, JAG, Summerland, So NoTORIous, and Guiding Light. He was the voice of Vayne Solidor in Final Fantasy XII and has done several commercial voiceovers. He is currently the voice of Kenmore and has narrated more than ten audiobooks, including James Jones’ acclaimed novel From Here to Eternity.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Laura on May 13, 2018

I have to give this book five stars for the impact it had on my understanding of the human species' drive to destroy what it doesn't understand or appreciate. The book functions as both an ode to the intelligence and beauty of the coyote but also as a mournful dirge to America's deeply dysfunctional......more

Goodreads review by Lark on January 30, 2019

To me Konrad Lorenz's essay "The Taming of the Shrew" in his collection King Solomon's Ring is a wondrous example of great field biology writing. In it, Lorenz delights in describing the behavior of the water shrew, and he does so with meticulous, loving detail, and through this tiny lens, focused o......more

Goodreads review by Joshua on December 18, 2017

Coyote deserves better. I like coyotes. I like the animals. I like the idea of them--existing by their wiles in the shadow of humans. I like the representations. Speaking of wiles, I like Wile E. Coyote. I wanted to like this book. But it just never added up. Flores was one of the scholars to bring en......more

Goodreads review by Trish on September 30, 2016

Dan Flores has done something fascinating in this book, rehabilitating the image of a persecuted carnivore lowest on our opinion roster of animals, including cockroaches and rats. He makes the case that coyotes should be America’s national avatar, displacing the bison or buffalo. Extremely clever, a......more

Goodreads review by Ms.pegasus on July 29, 2017

Numerous authors have already delved into the cultural and scientific research on the coyote, a uniquely American animal. Flores lists these works in his extensive bibliography and mentions some of them in the text of his book. In COYOTE AMERICA he documents a long history of destructive and inhuman......more

Quotes

“A masterly synthesis of scientific research and personal observation.”

Wall Street Journal

“The coyote stories in this book are among the best, and Flores is a master storyteller.”

Natural History

“Highly recommended for natural history enthusiasts interested in moving beyond the conventional wisdom about coyotes.”

Library Journal

“Flores’ mix of edification and entertainment is a welcome antidote to a creature so often viewed with fear.”

Publishers Weekly

“Well written throughout and just the right length, Flores’ book makes a welcome primer for living in a land in which coyotes roam freely.”

Kirkus Reviews

“In this brilliant book, Flores traces the wane and wax of the coyote. Their story is interwoven with our story, but it is also like our story, that of a species that has faced challenges and overcome them. Read this book if you want to understand the wild canids among us and also, perhaps, a little bit more about yourself.”

Rob Dunn, author of The Man Who Touched His Own Heart

“A wily writer meets his natural subject. With erudition, pathos, and seductive humor, Flores tells coyote stories that expose the animalism of Americans, and humans everywhere. The pleasure of his book is the feeling of being alive.”

Jared Farmer, author of Trees in Paradise

Awards

  • PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award
Add to Cart
Add to Wish List