In the Hearts of the Beasts: How American Behavioral Scientists Rediscovered the Emotions of Animals

Rose emphasizes the ways that scientists' personal lives influenced their views on emotion. She highlights the researchers' relationships with their animal subjects, arguing that it was these intimate connections that ultimately generated interest in animal emotions, despite the scientists' devotion to empirical objectivity. The author also discusses how many researchers' wives made substantial contributions to the field by working with their husbands as collaborators and ghost writers, despite their exclusion from academic institutions. In a field where most public players were men, these are important and often overlooked historical details . . . The volume will excel, however, with readers already versed in the field seeking to contextualize the current science. * Sasha L. Winkler, University of California, Los Angeles, The Quarterly Review of Biology * In the Hearts of the Beasts is a remarkable achievement. Rose shows that even during the supposed heyday of behaviorism, when animals were deemed to be 'blank slates,' American comparative psychologists and biologists actually came to realize that their animal subjects had emotions. Packed with fascinating details about the daily lives of the scientists as they lived and worked with their animals, the book treats the animals as active agents that helped shape ideas and theories. For it was their very dedication to uncovering facts about animal lives, Rose brilliantly argues, that allowed these scientists to see into the hearts of their beasts." -Nadine Weidman, Lecturer on the History of Science, Harvard University In the Hearts of the Beasts forcefully demonstrates how the American empirical tradition of scientific inquiry pioneered the study of animal emotions during the long twentieth century. Extensively researched and beautifully written, this is a groundbreaking transnational analysis of a scientific field, the fascinating lives of its human practitioners, and the broader history of human and animal relationships." -Janet M. Davis, Author of The Gospel of Kindness: Animal Welfare and the Making of Modern America