The contributions to this book are about the zoo and modernity, the fable beasts from Aesop to cartoons, antique imagination about animals, natural histories, the horse's grandeur, bestiaries, designer chicken and swine fever, respect for animals. This book offers a selection of original contributions by European novelists, poets, artists, essayists, literary critics, historians, socialists, anthropologists, and philosophers. Its purpose is to blend and merge into one the many genres which constitute Western written culture.