The 1978 classic on man and nature returns in this special twenty-fifth-anniversary edition, featuring a new afterword that assesses how far we’ve advanced in our understanding of other creatures and our efforts to conserve the environment. Humankind's relationship with the wolf is the sum of a spectrum of responses ranging from fear to admiration and affection. Lopez’s classic, careful study won praise from a wide range of reviewers, became a finalist for the National Book award, and forever improved the way books on wild animals are written. Of Wolves and Men explores the uneasy interaction between wolves and civilization over the centuries, and the wolf's prominence in our thoughts about wild creatures. Drawing upon an impressive array of literature, history, science, and mythology as well as extensive personal experience with captive and free-ranging wolves, Lopez argues for the wolf's preservation and immerses the reader in its sensory world, creating a compelling portrait of the wolf both as a real animal and as imagined by different kinds of men. A scientist might perceive the wolf as defined by research data, while an Eskimo hunter sees a family provider much like himself. For many Native Americans the wolf is also a spiritual symbol, a respected animal that can strengthen the individual and the community. With irresistible charm and elegance, Of Wolves and Men celebrates careful scientific fieldwork, dispels folklore that has enabled the Western mind to demonize wolves, explains myths, and honors indigenous traditions, allowing us to understand how this remarkable animal has become so prominent for so long in the human heart. “A remarkable book, both biologically absorbing and humanly rich, and one that should be read by every ecologically concerned American.” —John Fowles “ Animal Kingdom Of Wolves and Men is not only the best popular account of an animal I have read in a long time, but also something new — a bridge between books of the past and those of the future, which, it is hoped, will incorporate and expand the perceptions so eloquently treated here.” —George Schaller “A splendid, beautiful book.” — Edmund Fuller, Wall Street Journal “Fascinating....His book has a wealth of observation, mythology and mysticism about wolves that adds a colorful part to the still unfinished mosaic that defines the wolf.” —Bayard Webster, New Fork Times Book Review “Eloquent....His own patient effort to understand a despised, feared and heavily mythologized beast induces a shiver, of strangeness, the sign of fresh, original work.” —Walter Clemons, Newsweek “Unusually informative and sensitive.” —Robert Kirsch, Los Angeles Times “Haunting....has something of value to say to all of us.” — Boston Globe “Brilliant...a work of intelligence, dedication and beauty, deserving the widest possible attention not only for the sake of wolves but also for the sake of men.” —Whitley Streiber, Washington Post Barry Lopez (1945–2020) was the author of three collections of essays, including Horizon ; several story collections; Arctic Dreams , for which he received the National Book Award; Of Wolves and Men , a National Book Award finalist; and Crow and Weasel , a novella-length fable. He contributed regularly to both American and foreign journals and traveled to more than seventy countries to conduct research. He was the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim, Lannan, and National Science Foundations and was honored by a number of institutions for his literary, humanitarian, and environmental work. Chapter One: ORIGIN AND DESCRIPTION Imagine a wolf moving through the northern woods. The movement, over a trail he has traversed many times before, is distinctive, unlike that of a cougar or a bear, yet he appears, if you are watching, sometimes catlike or bearlike. It is purposeful, deliberate movement. Occasionally the rhythm is broken by the wolf's pause to inspect a scent mark, or a move off the trail to paw among stones where a year before he had cached meat. The movement down the trail would seem relentless if it did not appear so effortless. The wolf's body, from neck to hips, appears to float over the long, almost spindly legs and the flicker of wrists, a bicycling drift through the trees, reminiscent of the movement of water or of shadows. The wolf is three years old. A male. He is of the subspecies occidentalis , and the trees he is moving among are spruce and subalpine fir on the eastern slope of the Rockies in northern Canada. He is light gray; that is, there are more blond and white hairs mixed with gray in the saddle of fur that covers his shoulders and extends down his spine than there are black and brown. But there are silver and even red hairs mixed in, too. It is early September, an easy time of year, and he has not seen the other wolves in his pack for three or four days. He has heard no howls, but he knows the others are about, in ones and twos li