Brutal reasoning: animals, rationality, and humanity in Early Modern England

This monograph is a re-assessment of a key concern of Renaissance studies – the nature of reason. Unlike earlier studies this book focuses on the use made of animals in debates about reason in the period 1558-1700, and looks at the impact Descartes' ‘beast-machine' hypothesis has had on the writing of history in the west. As such this monograph is a development of EF's earlier book, Perceiving Animals: Humans and Beasts in Early Modern English Culture (Palgrave, 2000), and of her consideration of the nature of an animal historiography in ‘A Left-Handed Blow' (output no. 3).