Cormorant: A Cultural History of Greed and Prejudice

How does prejudice grow and mutate? What does intolerance, when transferred from human beings onto animals, do to those creatures? And what, in return, does it do to us? Cormorant is the gripping story of a 'greedy' bird hated across the world, the object of global conflict between the fishing industry on the one hand and environmental science on the other. Gordon McMullan's book reveals that cormorants have been loathed for centuries, a detestation that has metamorphosed over time. Drawing on fields which include literature, art history and zoology, and ranging from America to China and from Britain to Peru, Cormorant explores racism, xenophobia and capitalism through the remarkable story of a bird. McMullan argues that if in the present we are to recognize prejudicial attitudes towards animals and our fellow human beings, then we need to look to the past to understand how those viewpoints have taken hold.

Table of Contents:
Introduction; 1. Evil cormorant; 2. Cormorant and pelican; 3. Greedy cormorant; 4. Cormorant shit; 5. Invasive cormorant; 6. Indigenous cormorant (cormorant and pelican, part two); Conclusion: likeness.

About the Author :
Gordon McMullan is Professor of English at King's College London. He has written about early modern drama, late-life creativity and cultures of commemoration and has edited plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries. He is a recipient of the Sam Wanamaker Award from Shakespeare's Globe and is a Fellow of the English Association and of the Royal Society of Arts.

Review :
'This is one of the most original, stylish and memorable works of cultural criticism I have read in a long time. McMullan's sheer range of reference is stunningly impressive: he moves with ease and panache between the logo of Liverpool Football Club, the nineteenth-century Peruvian guano trade and Shakespeare. It is beautifully written, packed with startling research and full of jaw-dropping surprises.' Sir Jonathan Bate, Regents Professor of Literature and Foundation Professor of Environmental Humanities at Arizona State University and author of The Song of the Earth 'A fascinating, wide-ranging, spiky, cultural and biological biography of 'pretty much nobody's favourite bird'. Tim Birkhead, author of The Great Auk (2025) 'A fascinating birding experience. McMullan invites us to pay attention to the black bird with its wings stretched out like a cross and to look into the depth of its zoological existence. The book is a brilliant portrait of the cormorant, and a story about historical bias and colonial extraction.' Bénédicte Boisseron, Professor of Afroamerican and African Studies, The University of Michigan 'This marvellous, cosmopolitan compendium of Cormorant-lore is a treasury of troubling information. The diabolical fish-eating scourge of anglers and fish-farmers is as richly symbolic as the Eagle, the Raven, the Owl or the Phoenix. Gordon McMullan has linked the exploitation and domination of avian nature effectively to the forms of conflict and subordination evident among humankind. Prejudices warranted by race and species combine in the unsettling, blackened figure of an evil, guano-producing emissary from the dark side. This exhilarating cultural ecology presents human and animal in truly complex relation.' Paul Gilroy, Emeritus Professor of The Humanities at University College London