The pigeon is the quintessential city bird. Domesticated thousands of
years ago as a messenger and a source of food, its presence on our
sidewalks is so common that people consider the bird a nuisance--if they
notice it at all. Yet pigeons are also kept for pleasure, sport, and
profit by people all over the world, from the "pigeon wars" waged by
breeding enthusiasts in the skies over Brooklyn to the Million Dollar
Pigeon Race held every year in South Africa.
Drawing on more than three years of fieldwork across three continents,
Colin Jerolmack traces our complex and often contradictory relationship
with these versatile animals in public spaces such as Venice's Piazza
San Marco and London's Trafalgar Square and in working-class and
immigrant communities of pigeon breeders in New York and Berlin. By
exploring what he calls "the social experience of animals," Jerolmack
shows how our interactions with pigeons offer surprising insights into
city life, community, culture, and politics. Theoretically understated
and accessible to interested readers of all stripes, The Global Pigeon
is one of the best and most original ethnographies to be published in
decades.