Promotional Information

A sign of our scientific times: The study of play (a process we value as a society) has lagged far behind the study of fear (a process we abhor). Burghardt now puts matters back in perspective with his critically open-minded and exquisitely detailed excursion through the evolutionary spectrum of playfulness on the face of the earth. -- Jaak Panksepp, Distinguished Research Professor, Emeritus, Bowling Green State University, author of Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions Burghardt's book breaks new ground in the long and distringuished study of animal play. Using surplus resource theory, he proffers a new definition of lay and extends it to the study of variety of species, such as reptiiles, fish, birds, as well as mammals. -- Anthony D. Pellegrini, Professor of Educational Psychology, University of Minnesota The Genesis of Animal Play is the most comprehensive interdisciplinary study I've seen on this most mysterious behavior. It will be a keystone work for all those interested in the evolution and development of play, but it covers a remarkably broad range of other topics. Do octopi, turtles, or fish play? Read this book and find out. I did, and learned much even after three decades of studying carnivores at play. -- Marc Bekoff, University of Colorado, author of Minding Animals and editor of Animal Play and Encyclopedia Of Animal Behavior

About the Author

Gordon Burghardt is Alumni Distinguished Professor in Psychology and in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Tennessee. He is a coeditor of The Cognitive Animal (MIT Press, 2002), past president of the Animal Behavior Society, and editor of the Journal of Comparative Psychology.

Reviews

"A sign of our scientific times: The study of play (a process we value as a society) has lagged far behind the study of fear (a process we abhor). Burghardt now puts matters back in perspective with his critically open-minded and exquisitely detailed excursion through the evolutionary spectrum of playfulness on the face of the earth."--Jaak Panksepp, Distinguished Research Professor, Emeritus, Bowling Green State University, author of *Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions* "*The Genesis of Animal Play* is the most comprehensive interdisciplinary study I've seen on this most mysterious behavior. It will be a keystone work for all those interested in the evolution and development of play, but it covers a remarkably broad range of other topics. Do octopi, turtles, or fish play? Read this book and find out. I did, and learned much even after three decades of studying carnivores at play."--Marc Bekoff, University of Colorado, author of *Minding Animals* and editor of *Animal Play* and *Encyclopedia Of Animal Behavior*