Perseus Academic: Animal Architects by James L. Gould

In Animal Architects, James R Gould and Carol Grant Gould beautifully describe some of the architectural wonders of the animal kingdom…there is no doubt that the Goulds succeed in … captivating the reader with their enthusiasm and encyclopaedic knowledge of the biology of building.
— Times Higher Education Supplement, London

Superb popular science … one wow after another….
— Booklist

The story of this amazing and beautifully written little book is one of humans very gradually, and only through gritted teeth, admitting that other animals, down to the apparently humblest insects, are more intelligent than was ever suspected.
— Guardian UK

[A] notable achievment… highly readable… Animal constructions are fascinating, and the authors provide some useful insights into them.
— Nature

[R]aises interesting questions on animal intelligence and the evolution of building behavior.
— Library Journal

[A] fascinating journey, with plenty of surprises…. This book is filled with fascinating vignettes illuminating the intelligence capabilities of species us humans would like to think of as inferior; again and again, the Goulds show that human beings aren’t necessarily the smartest kids in class.
— Publishers Weekly

[E]ngrossing… For millennia, humans have debated the degree of sentience in animals. The prospect of using the structures an animal builds to extrapolate its cognitive capability is irresistible. Fortunately for readers, the levelheaded Goulds prove wonderful guides through these shadowy corridors, at once skeptical and reverent.
— Boston Globe

‘Miracle’ is not a word often found in reference to science, yet to the lay reader, this book will seem miraculous. For me, after a lifetime of reading and hands-on experience concerning the natural world, this spectacular book came as an explosion of surprising facts and interrelated studies defining intricacies so profound that one's only desire is to learn more. If asked to choose a single book that shows how the natural world is not merely a landscape, a single book that conveys the value of science and demands respect for the complex lives that are lived all around us, I'd have to choose this one.
— Elizabeth Marshall Thomas , author of The Hidden Life of Dogs and The Old Way: A Story of the First People

Nature is full of great architects, from termites that build air-conditioned skyscrapers to male bowerbirds, who decorate their nests with such a ‘sense of beauty’ that no female can resist. James and Carol Gould leave no stone unturned in their delightful description of these marvels. They puzzle, with the reader, what kind of interplay between inborn concepts and experience guides their production.
— Frans de Waal , author of Our Inner Ape

Animal Architects is a fascinating demonstration of the essential continuity between humans and animals—as builders, and as intelligent beings.
— Peter Singer, Professor of Bioethics, Princeton University, and author of Animal Liberation

In this forward-looking and exciting book, Jim and Carol Grant Gould open the door for informed discussion of intelligence in animals frequently written off as unintelligent automatons and force us to revise our stereotypes about insect and other animal architects.
— Marc Bekoff , author of The Emotional Lives of Animals