Index. Based on a five part NBC television series hosted by the author.

In a dystopian future, the government is overthrown and the new order protects animal rights with a heavy handed brutality. Consuming meat has become illegal and the agency tasked with enforcing the law is given free reign to do as they see fit. One experienced agent has a life changing encounter that shakes his core and forces him to examine his life while putting him at risk for becoming the target of his own organization.

A strikingly original exploration of what it might mean to be authentically human in the age of artificial intelligence, from the author of the critically-acclaimed Interior States. • "At times personal, at times philosophical, with a bracing mixture of openness and skepticism, it speaks thoughtfully and articulately to the most crucial issues awaiting our future." —Phillip Lopate “[A] truly fantastic book.”—Ezra Klein For most of human history the world was a magical and enchanted place ruled by forces beyond our understanding. The rise of science and Descartes's division of mind from world made materialism our ruling paradigm, in the process asking whether our own consciousness—i.e., souls—might be illusions. Now the inexorable rise of technology, with artificial intelligences that surpass our comprehension and control, and the spread of digital metaphors for self-understanding, the core questions of existence—identity, knowledge, the very nature and purpose of life itself—urgently require rethinking. Meghan O'Gieblyn tackles this challenge with philosophical rigor, intellectual reach, essayistic verve, refreshing originality, and an ironic sense of contradiction. She draws deeply and sometimes humorously from her own personal experience as a formerly religious believer still haunted by questions of faith, and she serves as the best possible guide to navigating the territory we are all entering.

A must-read for anyone who has ever wondered why people do what they do, from the popular author of The Naked Ape. This study concerns the city dweller. Morris finds remarkable similarities with captive zoo animals and looks closely at the aggressive, sexual and parental behaviour of the human species under the stresses and pressures of urban living. ‘Compelling and absorbing...Morris is concerned with the tension between our biology and our culture, as it is expressed in power, sex, status and war games’ New York Times

The Human–Animal Boundary shifts the traditional anthropocentric focus of philosophy and literature by combining the question “what is human?” with the question “what is animal?” The objective is to expand the imaginative scope of human–animal relationships by combining perspectives from different disciplines, traditions, and cultural backgrounds.