When the opossum feels threatened, she becomes paralyzed. Her body temperature plummets, her breathing and heart rates drop to a minimum, and her glands simulate the smell of a putrefying corpse. Playing Possum explores what the opossum and other creatures can teach us about how we and other species understand mortality, and demonstrates that the concept of death, far from being a uniquely human attribute, is widespread in the animal kingdom.
With humor and empathy, Susana Monsó tells the stories of ants who attend their own funerals, chimpanzees who clean the teeth of their dead, dogs who snack on their caregivers, crows who avoid the places where they saw a carcass, elephants obsessed with collecting ivory, and whales who carry their dead for weeks. Monsó, one of today’s leading experts on animal cognition and ethics, shows how there are more ways to conceive of mortality than the human way, and challenges the notion that the only emotional reactions to death worthy of our attention are ones that resemble our own.
Blending philosophical insight with new evidence from behavioral science and comparative psychology, Playing Possum dispels the anthropocentric biases that cloud our understanding of the natural world, and reveals that, when it comes to death and dying, we are just another animal.
Awards and Recognition
- A New Statesman Best of the Academic Presses for Autumn
- A New Yorker Best Book We've Read This Year
"Playing Possum is an unexpected mix of witty and grisly, cerebral and earthy. Monsó doesn’t so much answer questions about death as raise new ones, encouraging us to shed our reflexive anthropocentrism by paying close attention to what animals do, even when it fails to accord with human modes of behavior."—Jennifer Szalai, New York Times
"Playing Possum identifies a new discipline: comparative thanatology, the study of 'how animals react to individuals who are dead or close to dying, the physiological processes that underlie their reactions, and what these behaviors tell us about the minds of animals.' . . . Monsó is tender-hearted in her empathic descriptions but hard-headed when it comes to interpreting what an animal might be experiencing."—David P. Barash, Wall Street Journal
"A lively new book. . . . A sometimes moving, occasionally funny, and always considered treatise on whether animals understand death—and what that even means."—David Scharfenberg, Boston Globe
"Playing Possum represents a major contribution to comparative thanatology."—Kathryn Schulz, The New Yorker
"Extremely thoughtful, important, and seminal."—Marc Bekoff, Psychology Today
"This riveting book—often surprisingly uplifting, sometimes even funny—will enhance and expand our understanding of how other minds may apprehend one of life’s greatest mysteries."—Sy Montgomery, American Scholar
"In this study of animal attitudes to mortality and what it can teach us, Susana Monsó, an expert in animal cognition, intriguingly combines behavioural science, comparative psychology and zoology."—New Statesman
"[Monsó] makes the strong case that humans are far from the only animals to know the meaning of dying, even if our vocabularies differ. . . . [Her] book provides a lot of really fascinating lessons and reminders about death and how it’s seen in the world."—Ed Cara, Gizmodo
"In thoughtful prose peppered with lively anecdotes, Monsó tackles our all-too-human anthropocentric biases surrounding death and deftly outlines a useful philosophical framework for understanding animal cognition to illustrate how a minimal concept of death might be possible, even if it differs among species."—Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica
"Illuminating."—Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution
"Monsó upends our anthropocentric views of death and makes the case that other species possess the cognitive requirements to understand death and mortality."—Francisco J. Rivera Rosario, The Transmitter
"Monsó’s work offers a fresh perspective on death, both for humans and animals."—Trinity Sparke, One Green Planet
"Fascinating. . . . [Monsó] has written an exceedingly interesting book that is as accessible to a general audience as it is relevant to specialists."—Leon Vlieger, Inquisitive Biologist
"[Monsó is able] to write in such a way that is . . . lighter, somewhat funnier, and . . . understandable for a non-academic audience."—Cara Santa Maria, Talk Nerdy
"Susana Monsó has written an erudite account of the way animals relate to death, from the perspective of both predator and prey, and even the recognition of the end of life by those animals fortunate to live a long life, ultimately succumbing from natural causes. In a step by step manner, she takes us through the stages of cognition, demonstrating that animals have a concept of death, differing in detail from species to species, but present nonetheless. . . . The book is written in a style that is easy to read, yet compelling in its complexity. Along the way, a little humour is added for good measure."—David Gascoigne, Travels with Birds
“With great wit and subtle humor, Monsó presents in a new light a number of fascinating, often familiar scientific studies of animal encounters with death. This book is a wonderful addition to conversations about animal minds and animal emotions.”—Lori Gruen, author of Entangled Empathy: An Alternative Ethic for Our Relationships with Animals
“Funny and a bit macabre, Playing Possum addresses the deep philosophical questions that emerge from animals’ encounters with death and loss. Monsó writes with charm, and the stories she tells will interest animal lovers, fans of philosophy, and those with a touch of goth.”—Kristin Andrews, York University
“In this remarkable book, Susana Monsó writes simply and beautifully about the vexed question of the ability of animals to understand death. This should be read not only by philosophers but by everyone who would like to better understand their companion animal.”—Peter Singer, author of Animal Liberation
“In Playing Possum, Susana Monsó puts a wealth of fascinating examples at readers’ feet, offering an accessible and enlightening philosophical exploration of how animals relate to, and understand, death.”—David M. Peña-Guzmán, author of When Animals Dream: The Hidden World of Animal Consciousness
