Table of Contents

Illustrations

Preface

PART 1: Histories

1 Tales of Rats

2 Naming and Taming

3 All Fall Down

PART 2: Questions and Answers

4 A Battle of Wits?

5 Do Rats Think?

6 Are Rats Gluttons?

7 All in Their Genes?

8 Rat Societies

PART 3: The Blindness of Research

9 Population Explosions

10 Social Life and Death

11 Nature and Human Nature

Glossary

Notes on sources

References

Index

Promotional Information

Shortlisted: The HarperCollins Publishers est Designed Non-Fiction Book APA Design Awards 2002.

About the Author

Tony Barnett has written a number of books, both academic and for the general public. He has many years of science broadcasting experience and appears regularly on the ABC Science Show. His first job was working on the London underground during the Blitz, where rat-born diseases were a major problem. After the war he worked as an adviser to the Indian government on controlling rats before becoming a professor of biology at the ANU in Canberra.

Reviews

'Mr Speaker, I smell a rat; I see him forming in the air and darkening the sky; but I'll nip him in the bud.' An English Member of Parliament