What this intriguing—and unsettling—apex predator reveals about Americans’ attempts to control and connect with the natural world.
Both a flesh-and-blood critter and the stuff of legend, the alligator inspires as much awe as it does fear. While this apex predator survives mainly on fish, birds, snakes, turtles, and small mammals, it will consume almost anything, including pets, livestock, and—in rare cases—humans. Though dreaded as a man-eater, the alligator has also been cast as a lucrative commodity, a popular roadside attraction, a prized hunting trophy, and even an unlikely household pet.
Gator! tells the riveting story of this iconic predator. Historian Mark V. Barrow, Jr.—a native of Florida, a state famous for its alligators—traces the reptile’s ancient lineage from the age of the dinosaurs to its current status as a cherished mascot and regional icon. He explores its role as a surrogate species, offering vital clues about the health of ecosystems, as well as its profound cultural weight as a totem for Indigenous communities, a mythical sewer-dweller in New York lore, and a disturbing tool of racial oppression used to dehumanize African Americans. Once over-hunted, the alligator has long been celebrated as a triumph of the federal Endangered Species Act. Barrow delves into the nuances of this comeback, one that offers both a cautionary tale of market-driven exploitation and a conservation success story.
An entertaining history of one of North America’s most charismatic animals, Gator! explores how this reptile became a Florida emblem and a national enigma, transforming humans and alligators in the process.
Table of Contents:
Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1. Bartram’s Man-Eating Monster
Chapter 2. The Alligator’s Allure: The Rise of Florida Tourism and the Hide Trade
Chapter 3. “A Thrill of a Lifetime”: Grappling with Gators on the Road and on the Farm
Chapter 4. “What the Tourists Wanted Most”: Seminoles, Saurians, and Show Camps
Chapter 5. Alligator Bait: The Making of a Racial Slur
Chapter 6. Dreams of Domestication: Alligators as Pets
Chapter 7. The Trials and Tribulations of Albert
Chapter 8. Acting in the Face of Uncertainty: The Campaign to Save the American Alligator
Chapter 9. Living with a Fearsome Carnivore: The Origins of Florida’s Nuisance Alligator Program
Chapter 10. The Alligator as Surrogate Species
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index
About the Author :
Mark V. Barrow, Jr. is professor of history at Virginia Tech and the author of A Passion for Birds: American Ornithology after Audubon and Nature’s Ghosts: Confronting Extinction from the Age of Jefferson to the Age of Ecology. He grew up in Gainesville, Florida—deep in the heart of Gator Country—where his fascination with the American alligator first took root.
Review :
“The swampy environs of Barrow’s boyhood home openly crawled with bellowing, growling, and chomping alligators. That formative landscape helped shape a lifelong passion for environmental history, and in Gator!, one of the field’s leading scholars brings that passion to life. With incisive questions, critical insight, and exhaustive research, Barrow delivers an engaging and authoritative account of a storied American creature.”
“In Gator!, Barrow offers an engaging, comprehensive, and sympathetic account of the relationships between humans and the apex predator whose proximity, as he persuasively demonstrates, we have been most willing to tolerate. Of course, that toleration is far from absolute; the relationships run the gamut from affectionate cohabitation to attempted extermination. And some of them are relatively symbolic or abstract. In Florida, the focus of the book and of United States alligator populations, alligators serve as mascots and tourist magnets, as well as intermittently troublesome and appreciated fellow residents.”
“A deeply researched and compellingly written history of the ways Americans have come to admire, exploit, fear, and appreciate one of the continent’s largest predators. Gator! glides through works of natural history and science; roadside amusement parks; and the intersections of money, fun, and terror behind mascots, pets, racial slurs, and conservation. This book does not release its hold on the reader!”
