Rating: 
Summary: An intriguing, if not compelling, read
Review: An intriguing discussion of the author's belief that cats have culture (which is learned, as distinguished from behavior, which is genetic), based mostly on her experience with "big" cats in Africa, Asia, and elsewhere. Worth reading just for her anecdotes of the changing ecoscape of sub-Saharan Africa. There are some gems here -- her discussion of tourists in Colorado seeing a Puma and mistakenly thinking "Awwww, look, the Puma looks just like a big version of our cute little kitty cat," instead of more wisely thinking "Whoa! Good thing our cat isn't that big."
Rating:
Summary: This is not a 4-star book
Review: As you can tell from the other reviews, the author of this book is all over the place. The early chapters tell of housecats, the middle chapters about lions and bushmen, the ending chapters about pumas in N. America. In fact, it turns out that parts of this book are from a collection of articles that had previously appeared in the New Yorker. I found the middle portion about African lions, bushmen, and their disappearing habitat un-interesting. The sections on domestic cats and pumas, were much more interesting to me. She does include a LOT of her idle speculations about why cats behave as they do, but I liked that. I can only whole-heartedly recommend this book to people with a special interest in house cats, Kalahari bushmen, and pumas. The rest of us will find it a mixed blessing.
Rating: 
Summary: One of the best natural history behavior books
Review: Disregard the negative reviews or comments previously written on this book.
This is one of the best natural history behavior books ever written and the best on cats behavior, both wild and domestic.
Rating: 
Summary: not a compelling read
Review: given the title, i expected the book to contain ancedotes, stories and personal observations. This book does contain all of the above, but they were not as numerous, as informative, nor as insightful as i had hoped. Possibly having lived with cats all my life, and having seen a few nature shows on big cats, made this book kind of uninformative for me.
Rating: 
Summary: Mislead by Cover Photo...
Review: I generally liked her other book, the Social Lives of Dogs, and in fact read it twice over the course of the previous year. I felt as though I learned a lot about canine behavior and their social organization. This book however was a terrible disappointment for me. I checked it out of the library after giving one as a gift to a friend, only to find that there was very little written about house cats (my primary interest), and all the talk of big cats and anecdotes from the author's many years in Africa seemed indulgent and not even terribly insightful for those interested in these topics. I'd urge you to look for a copy in your local library or bookstore and scan through it before commitment to the cover price.
Rating:
Summary: The Circus culture
Review: I spend a lot of time in India and am very knowledgeable about tigers. I was absolutely amazed to read that Ms Thomas thought it perfectly acceptable for tigers to be kept in tiny cages, and dragged around America only to emerge in a circus ring and then be put back in a cage. Ms Thomas seems to think this a wonderful life guaranteed to keep tigers alert and happy, and reccomends the practice continue. She even sings the praises of John Cuneo who breeds tigers for circuses in the US and is currently being prosecuted for animal cruelty.
On the tiger in a circus: Ôthe owners live in small trailers and tigers live in travellin cages on wheels, each cage about twice the length of the tiger who inhabits it. Sometimes nothing beteter than a large tarp or the edge of a circus tent shelters these little groups of people and tigers just barely protecting them from wind sun & rainÕ The tiger is a top predator, it is extremely intelligent and built to hunt. That is its raison d'etre. Even when not hunting a tiger will prowl may be 15 miles a night.
They spend 2 years teaching their cubs to hunt.
If Ms Thomas seriously think that learning a few miserable tricks to perform in a ring, keep an animal such as this stimulated and happy, she clearly has no knowledge of tigers at all and frankly makes one wonder what if anything else she writes about in the book has any validity. If you are interested in tigers, don't buy this ridiculous book buy anything by Valmik Thapar, a man who really does know about this majestic predator.
Rating:
Summary: Skip it
Review: I think her dog book was good cuz she's a dog person. She's not a cat person, and it shows.
Rating: 
Summary: Very entertaining.
Review: This book is filled with very interesting information on our feline friends. It starts from the prehestoric age and moves on to the modern day cats. It provides a lot of info on the big, domestic felines as well as their big wild cousins. But apart from a very detailed and documented journey into the feline world, this book is filled with anectodes that will make you laugh, will make you sad and will make you think. And one thing is certain: After having read this book, you'll never look the same way at your cat.
Rating:
Summary: The finest Natural History book I¿ve ever read
Review: This is a book that anyone interested in natural history and/or animal behavior ought to read. The author has an almost poetic command of the English language combined with a thorough understanding of the methodologies of the social and natural sciences. Her (radical?) contention that animals, particularly cats, have culture - a series of learned and transmissible behaviors - is demonstrated to the point where it should at least be taken seriously by the scientific community, and perhaps to the point of being as proven as possible outside the established boundaries of scientific methodology. Her observations of the interactions of the Serengeti populations over time, both lions and people, have certainly convinced me that animals have culture. And at the same time they've broken my heart just a little bit more at what we humans are doing to one another and to the other species that share this world. I have read this book at least four times, cover to cover, and smiled and wept a little and been further enlightened during each read. I've bought it as a gift for several friends and have two or three copies of my own at home. A reviewer said of this work: "Wonderful book. Formidable woman.", and that pretty well sums it up - her voice is quiet, but I believe you will find it resonating with you for a very long time indeed. In its own small way, "The Tribe of Tiger" is every bit as much of a classic as "Origin of the Species" or "Silent Spring" (or "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats"!).
Rating:
Summary: Insights into human/cat interactions, beautifully written
Review: This is without doubt one of the best books on animal behavior I have ever read. What Thomas does that others do not (and often cannot) is three-fold: First, using her long experience with animals both domestic and wild, she INTERPRETS their behavior from her observations. Most of us do that, but scientists in general do not. They cannot because such interpretations, unless established scientifically, would be labeled "anthropomorphic," and prove dangerous to their careers. You and I interpret the behavior of our animals, but most of us have only a small fraction of the experience that Elizabeth Thomas has. She has spent decades in the wild, especially in Africa, studying animals and their interactions with humans. This interaction between humans and their way of seeing the world and that of cats and their way of seeing the world--our differing "cultures" as Thomas rightly uses the term--is the second thing she does so very well. Her stories about how the Ju/wasi people, for example, treat lions and how the lions treat them--with mutual respect--and how that differs from the way non-indigenous people treat lions is just fascinating to read. She describes the Ju/wasi talking to a couple of lions, telling them firmly and politely that a certain fallen wildebeest was theirs and that the lions should leave. After listening, the lions left. (p.118) And how the Ju/wasi behaved if by chance they should come upon a lion in the wild: the person would take an oblique angle away from the lion and walk with purpose, keeping the lion in sight but not staring. Thomas discovered that a lion meeting people sometimes would do the same! The third thing that Thomas does extraordinary well is to use her novelist's sense of description and IMAGINE how the cat is feeling. She writes beautifully with love and understanding, but without mawkish intent or any phony sentimentality. Here's an example: "Even people with very inconspicuous disabilities are quickly zeroed in on by cats...the entering tigers stopped...to stare...at someone they had spotted deep in the [amphitheater] crowd. Following their gaze I finally found what they had noticed immediately: a child with Down's syndrome sitting quietly and (to me) inconspicuously amid his family." (p. 123) If you limp by a caged carnivore, a wolf or a leopard, say, your limping will excite the animal because an injured or disabled animal is its best prey. As Thomas explains, carnivores want to obtain their meals with as little risk of injury to themselves as possible because any injury in the wild can prove fatal. Here's Thomas on the roaring of lions: "At about ten o'clock that night a lioness suddenly appeared between the two camps and began to roar. The loudness of lions cannot be described or imagined but must be experienced. My body was so filled with the sound that I couldn't think or breathe, and in the brief silences between the roars my ears rang." (p. 135) She goes on to speculate later in the book that lions may use their roars to frighten and flush out their prey. On page 161 Thomas describes exchanging yawns with a lioness lying by a water hole. Thomas yawned and then, "To my amazement, without taking her eyes off me she also yawned. Was it coincidence...Was it empathy? Fascinated I deliberately yawned again. She yawned again!" I've had similar experiences with cats. A yawn is a signal that they are comfortable with your presence. Domestic cats in the yard will also turn their back on you as they lie on their side to signal that they are comfortable with your presence. I always wondered about water holes on the savannas in Africa. How could the various animals come to drink in safety, and how did they manage to avoid one another? Thomas gives a convincing explanation. The lions, who are most active at night, come in the night to drink. During the heat of the day prey animals come when the lions are resting. And of course the humans wait until the sun is fully up before approaching. When the elephants come, the lions leave. Interestingly enough, Thomas claims that lions will not spoil the water hole with their scat. Thomas's skill as a novelist shows in this passage. She is describing her friend Katharine Payne's experience with a lion that she had spotted just a few feet away as she lay in her sleeping bag: "He looked and looked at Katy. She looked and looked at him, hearing the wet noises of him swallowing his saliva and settling his tongue. He was thinking of eating. Cats are famous for their patience--the big lion watched Katy while the moon slowly rose behind him...The lion continued to think of eating. Eventually, he drooled." (p. 162) One of the points that Thomas makes in this book is that all cats, from four hundred pound lions to our house cats, have much in common. Our domestic little kitties are more social than we think, and their hunting instincts are just as savage as those of a leopard. And yes lions purr. She also claims that tigers are better off in circuses than in zoos mainly because they engage in regular activity that stimulates them, and that they enjoy their interactions with their trainers. She makes a convincing argument, and yet we must have zoos because without them most of us could not see these magnificent creatures; and indeed someday sadly zoos will be their only home. Maybe what is needed are zookeepers who know the culture of their animals well enough to provide them with something more than meat and boredom. It is wonderful how Thomas becomes, for the purpose of this book, the animals she describes. Here she describes a lioness observing cattle: "One whiff of that dizzying, grassy scent would have set a lion's mouth watering." (pp. 181-182)
| 
