@article{718495,
      recid = {718495},
      author = {Lawler, Andrew.},
      title = {Why did the chicken cross the world? : the epic saga of  the bird that powers civilization /},
      pages = {ix, 324 pages ;},
      abstract = {"From ancient empires to modern economics, veteran  journalist Andrew Lawler delivers a sweeping history of the  animal that has been most crucial to the spread of  civilization across the globe--the chicken. Queen Victoria  was obsessed with it. Socrates' last words were about it.  Charles Darwin and Louis Pasteur made their scientific  breakthroughs using it. Catholic popes, African shamans,  Chinese philosophers, and Muslim mystics praised it.  Throughout the history of civilization, humans have  embraced it in every form imaginable--as a messenger of the  gods, powerful sex symbol, gambling aid, emblem of  resurrection, all-purpose medicine, handy research tool,  inspiration for bravery, epitome of evil, and, of course,  as the star of the world's most famous joke. In Why Did the  Chicken Cross the World?, science writer Andrew Lawler  takes us on an adventure from prehistory to the modern era  with a fascinating account of the partnership between human  and chicken (the most successful of all cross-species  relationships). Beginning with the recent discovery in  Montana that the chicken's unlikely ancestor is T. rex,  this book builds on Lawler's popular Smithsonian cover  article, How the Chicken Conquered the World to track the  chicken from its original domestication in the jungles of  Southeast Asia some 10,000 years ago to postwar America,  where it became the most engineered of animals, to the  uncertain future of what is now humanity's single most  important source of protein. In a masterful combination of  historical sleuthing and journalistic exploration on four  continents, Lawler reframes the way we feel and think about  our most important animal partner--and, by extension, all  domesticated animals, and even nature itself. Lawler's  narrative reveals the secrets behind the chicken's  transformation from a shy jungle bird into an animal of  astonishing versatility, capable of serving our species'  changing needs. For no other siren has called humans to  rise, shine, and prosper quite like the rooster's cry:  Cock-a-doodle-doo!"--},
      url = {http://library.usi.edu/record/718495},
}