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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 301
EAN num: 9780415937290
ISBN number: 0415937299
Label: Routledge
Manufacturer: Routledge
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 208
Printing Date: June 21, 2002
Publishing house: Routledge
Sale Popularity Level: 917161
Studio: Routledge
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Product Description:
From J.R.R. Tolkien's treasure-hoarding Smaug to the bright blue beasts of the Chinese New Year's celebration, this magnificent, fire-breathing creature is ingrained in our culture. But where did the dragon originate? And how is it that people from Africa to China to America picture it the same?
An Instinct for Dragons is anthropologist David E Jones's account of his search for the mysterious birth of this ubiquitous monster. In a vast synthesis of art, mythology, history, and anthropology, Jones finds that the dragon is in fact a universal image. Not only does every culture in the world have a name for it -- smok in Polish, tatsu in Japanese, unktena in Cherokee -- but dragons everywhere share many of the same characteristics: multiple heads, talon-like claws, blazing breath.
Jones spans dragon lore from the Loch Ness monster to the Internet, as well as dragon inscriptions on cave walls, cliffs, and pots. His conclusion is stunning: not only is our fear and fascination with dragons a direct resultof the predators who threatened our evolution - eagles, leopards, and pythons - but humankind is essentially hardwired to believe in this creature.
Captivating and eloquent, An Instinct for Dragons decodes the ancient puzzle of the oldest and fiercest monster.
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Rated by buyers 
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Overall, I thought this was quite an interesting idea, and I suspect that Jones is correct, though I'd wager that the snake played a disproportionate role (though not the only one, as the other reviewers suggest) and that during the time in which we were savannah apes we also included the crocodile.
However, the support for this hypothesis is rather spotty. In several cases, he neglects compelling evidence (such as the total lack of dinosaur fossils on Hawaii due to their recent volcanic origins) or makes errors which should have been caught (such as suggesting snakes' eyes face their prey as they strike, when in fact the mouth opens so wide that vision is totally obstructed). In some cases, he reaches too far (attempting to justify every minor embellishment of the dragon as originating from one or all of the three original predators), in other cases not far enough (a surprisingly cursory view of the reactions of basal primates to snakes, particularly lemurs, which have been isolated from venomous snakes for ~90 million years). His sections of evolution were generally good, but were too adaptationist and failed to seriously examine factors such as genetic drift and founder effect which could have led to individuals with altered perception of the "dragon threat" being disproportionately represented in the genepool.
More importantly, Jones clearly has done his utmost of expand the idea to fill the minimum book length, which is clearly evidenced by the full-page figures and entire last chapter. This has resulted in long lists of evidence and myths scattered throughout the book which distract from and bury the main point. The addition of the section on The Tree of Life as a universal symbol was similarly distracting.
It's a good idea with some strong potential, but the way in which it was written was enough to bump it down a whole star in rating. In my opinion, it should be re-issued as part of a larger whole exploring the biological basis of other universal symbols such as the tree, with much of the evidence and myth relegated to an appendix and with a herpetologist or at least an evolutionary biologist reviewing it prior to printing.
Rated by buyers 
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First, I have to give Jones credit for the imagination behind his premise. It's a very interesting one, with (on the surface) a lot of potential. But -- and you knew there had to be a "but", since I gave the book a mere two stars --
The book is dry, dull, and finally unconvincing. It reads like a doctoral dissertation rather roughly adapted for the general interest audience. And while Jones might be onto something *within one or two very specific cultural contexts* (e.g., China and Africa), in the main, I think he's very wrong to suggest this anthropological patchwork, where dragons are an amalgam of the eagle, leopard, and snake. No, I have to agree with B. Boesenberg that dragons (at least, the European variety) are really just snakes "with wild imaginings attached".
Rated by buyers 
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Mr Jones tries very hard to prove that dragons are combinations of the eagle, the leopard and the snake. Unfortunately for Mr Jones he needn't have bothered. Dragons aren't composit creatures. They're snakes with wild imaginings attached. Mr Jones goes to great lengths to "chimerize" the dragons and demystify the myths. But this isn't necessary! Snakes had the power to resurrect themselves from the dead when they shed their skin, (supposedly). Snakes were the unblinking, killers of men with one bite, (supposedly). Snakes were the models for the "python priestesses" and the raw materials that created the dreaded envenomed weapons. It is still the snake yesterday that crawls through many a nightmare. This is the true dragon of old, enemy of George, the Leviathon that God can't kill, the moon powered antithesis of all sun/thunder god peoples! Go back and read Joseph Campbell!!
Rated by buyers 
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In the human condition we have blended the three predators that preyed on us. With the compression of memory the leopard, matial eagle and serpent were blended into the dragon.This idea occured to him when he was preparing a lecture on the alarm calls of vervet monkeys. As Dr. Jones points out in this thoroughly researched book- every culture has dragons myths. This book is a combination of myth, anthropology and sociology. Dr. Jones as a professor of Anthropology at the University of Central Florida has done an excellent job of explaining the phenonomen of the dragon. This book is very engaging. I have been a student of folklore for many years and found that Dr. Jones told me of new dragons I had never found in other sources.
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