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Penguins, Pineapples and Pangolins: First Encounters with the Exotic
Can you remember seeing a tiger for the first time? Tasting a pineapple? Touching a cactus? Probably not, because in these modern times everyone is very knowing—knowledge is at our fingertips and it sometimes feels as if there is nothing new to discover. The awe and excitement from that moment has been lost because these objects and experiences have become ordinary to us. But, if we travel back in time a few hundred years, before the age of globalization, people were encountering new foods, animals, plants, peoples and cultures for the first time as overseas trade routes opened up. Compiled from the archives of the British Library, this new book reflects the wonderment and curiosity of these new experiences.
192 pages, Hardcover
Published August 1, 2016
4 people are currently reading
286 people want to read
About the author
Claire Cock-Starkey
24 books23 followersI started out in media, working at BBC Radio Four and Five Live before going on to work at LBC. From there I found my spiritual home working with Ben Schott, starting out as researcher on the Sporting, Gaming and Idling Miscellany. I went on to help develop the format for Schott’s Almanac, working as Assistant Editor on the first two books before rising to become UK & Series Editor on the four subsequent UK books, three German and three US editions.
Working with Ben I also had the opportunity to assist with various miscellaneous offerings for The Daily Telegraph, The Times, Conde Nast Traveller, New York Times, Vanity Fair and Smythson diaries.
After producing a small team of children I decided it was time to set up on my own, so since 2011 I have been busily working as a freelance writer and editor – juggling writing books and articles, project managing a vast array of Lego building operations and editing and indexing a number of non-fiction titles.
I am happiest perched in the British Library reading rooms surrounded by a pile of obscure and fascinating books researching my next offering.
Working with Ben I also had the opportunity to assist with various miscellaneous offerings for The Daily Telegraph, The Times, Conde Nast Traveller, New York Times, Vanity Fair and Smythson diaries.
After producing a small team of children I decided it was time to set up on my own, so since 2011 I have been busily working as a freelance writer and editor – juggling writing books and articles, project managing a vast array of Lego building operations and editing and indexing a number of non-fiction titles.
I am happiest perched in the British Library reading rooms surrounded by a pile of obscure and fascinating books researching my next offering.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
July 6, 2018
I like the concept, and the quotes themselves are interesting, but the author's commentary was bland and didn't add much, in my opinion. I feel like there must have been a more engaging way to arrange this book.
October 25, 2024
It is rather a collection of quotes from just a few sources. I was hoping for contextalisation of the original texts or a systematic approach to them but I was missing both.
June 10, 2018
This book collects eyewitness accounts of the first time Westerners encountered things and people in the rest of the world. It’s split into 3 sections: Animals & Birds; Food, Fruit & Plants; and People, Places & Customs. The animal section is perhaps the most whimsical, while the food one contains a lot of things that we find common nowadays, especially fruits, so it is interesting to read about them as unknown and exotic. The final section does contain the cringeworthy bits that you might expect of Westerners meeting new cultures, but it also contains accounts with a lot of admiration for others as well as one notable account of a Frenchman being disgusted by the nasty behavior of an Englishman. All in all, it is an interesting look at how Western explorers thought of and experienced new places.
September 13, 2017
I found this one to be kind of a mixed bag. Essentially, the author has taken a dozen or two European exploration narratives, and excerpted the parts where the travelers' first reactions to various things are described. Those firsthand bits are fun to read, if not all of equal value. I found, however, that the book felt like it wandered, without the overall structure doing much to tie the disparate segments together. I also didn't find the commentary introducing the quotations to be uniformly excellent, or even uniformly interesting (although it certainly was in places). So how much you'll enjoy this book probably depends on whether your interest in the subject exceeds your need for narrative and commentary.
July 6, 2017
A collection of early written accounts of the first European encounters with various animals, plants, and people. Some are hilarious, some are surprisingly evocative, and some are just unfortunate. Very interesting read.
February 7, 2022
An interesting book, I never really considered how the first people to have witnessed a certain animal or object would have reacted to some items we take as common now. The confusion and shock these initial explorers must have found is interesting and enjoyable to learn about.
October 25, 2024
This is a collection of excerpts from European sources about visiting non-European places. It was fairly dry and not much context was given at any point. I would have liked to see writings from non-European sources and more thought to organization and background provided for readers.
June 24, 2020
This is the driest book... it’s pretty much an expanded bibliography of the research that is hung together fairly loosely. Great concept that I had been excited about.
Title is nice though!
Title is nice though!
July 26, 2023
If you love animals and saying “hey did you know that…” to all your friends (or anyone) this is the book for you.
September 6, 2025
是文献合集的感觉，如果不是特别对这些发现历史感兴趣，这个可以跳过。
June 27, 2022
Took me six months to finish this book, not because it’s long in text, but it is dense. It also seems to be written more as a reference than a book to read cover-to-cover, as I did. The book is a collection of excerpts from books written by early European explorers, primarily the 1500-1700s, on first encounters with animals, edible plants and native people. It’s divided into those three sections, but there doesn’t seem to be any clear order to the subsections. It’s a bit tedious most of the time, particularly in detailed 17th-century visual descriptions of plants. I often found the author’s brief history to be more interesting than the actual quoted passages.
As an example, she explains pineapples were first discovered in South America by Europeans in 1493 by Christopher Columbus. It wasn’t until the mid-17th century they were successfully cultivated in Europe, but only the very wealthy could afford hot houses to grow tropical plants. This made pineapples a status symbol of the wealthy that they incorporated as a decoration in architecture. A pineapple would be used over and over as a table decoration, people would even rent a pineapple for dinner party centerpieces, and the same pineapple would be rented out many times. Only the very wealthy could afford to actually eat a pineapple. This is how it came to be a symbol of hospitality, often seen on American buildings.
Most of the entries do not have this much narrative background. There is usually only a line or two of introduction. The most fun I got out of this book was in reading the early explorers’ descriptions of plants and animals to see if my family could guess what it was—they got almost all of them quite quickly.
Published by British Library, the book is particularly geared to when the British discovered these things and how, though that is often by way of other European countries. For example, giraffes were known in Roman times; Julius Caesar brought one back in a menagerie to show off his success in Egypt in 46 BC. They called it a ‘cameleopard’ due to its appearance. So many people came to see it, he decided to capitalize by having an event in the arena, having it killed by lions.
Many of the accounts of animals include a focus on whether they’re good to eat—somewhat understandable as most discoveries were by explorers who needed local food sources to survive. But there is also an attitude of seeking marketable commodities for profit. In 1655, explorer Edward Terry marveled at the attitude in India about not killing any creature if it can be possibly be avoided in A Voyage to East-India: wherein some things are taken notice of…, an often quoted source (most of the book titles were like that). They even paid his men not to kill flies. When he asked about venomous animals like snakes and spiders, he writes that they told him, “it is their nature to do hurts, and they cannot help it, but as for themselves they further say, that God hath given them reason to shun those Creatures, but not liberty to destroy them.” Which sounds to me more like our prevailing 21st attitude.
My interest was piqued by references to the Dutch East India Trading company. They gained control of much of Indonesia in the 1600s, and therefore had a monopoly on certain spices (nutmeg, mace, cloves and cinnamon). They intentionally limited to production to keep prices high. The people of the Moluccas, or Spice Islands, had a custom of planting a clove tree to celebrate a newborn baby. The Dutch had a policy of cutting down or burning any clove tree not on their plantations to maintain their monopoly. The locals resented this, obviously, and protected some rogue trees. From one of these rogue trees, a Frenchman gained seeds and successfully grew clove trees in Zanzibar, breaking the Dutch monopoly. The East India Trading company made another appearance in a section on Japan. In response to European missionaries, the shogun introduced a policy of sakoku (translation ‘locked country’)—no foreigners allowed in and no Japanese person allowed out. This lasted from 1633 to 1853. The one exception was…the Dutch East India Trading Company, which was allowed a warehouse in Nagasaki for trading. So Europeans had Japanese goods, but no knowledge of their culture. One of the few Europeans to enter Japan during this time was Dutchman John Struys who wrote about his experience in The Voyages and Travels of John Struys (1684). I imagine a book on the history of the East India Trading Company would be an interesting read. I’ve heard it mentioned often in British historical fiction, but didn’t realize it was a Dutch company, nor their role in exploration.
As an example, she explains pineapples were first discovered in South America by Europeans in 1493 by Christopher Columbus. It wasn’t until the mid-17th century they were successfully cultivated in Europe, but only the very wealthy could afford hot houses to grow tropical plants. This made pineapples a status symbol of the wealthy that they incorporated as a decoration in architecture. A pineapple would be used over and over as a table decoration, people would even rent a pineapple for dinner party centerpieces, and the same pineapple would be rented out many times. Only the very wealthy could afford to actually eat a pineapple. This is how it came to be a symbol of hospitality, often seen on American buildings.
Most of the entries do not have this much narrative background. There is usually only a line or two of introduction. The most fun I got out of this book was in reading the early explorers’ descriptions of plants and animals to see if my family could guess what it was—they got almost all of them quite quickly.
Published by British Library, the book is particularly geared to when the British discovered these things and how, though that is often by way of other European countries. For example, giraffes were known in Roman times; Julius Caesar brought one back in a menagerie to show off his success in Egypt in 46 BC. They called it a ‘cameleopard’ due to its appearance. So many people came to see it, he decided to capitalize by having an event in the arena, having it killed by lions.
Many of the accounts of animals include a focus on whether they’re good to eat—somewhat understandable as most discoveries were by explorers who needed local food sources to survive. But there is also an attitude of seeking marketable commodities for profit. In 1655, explorer Edward Terry marveled at the attitude in India about not killing any creature if it can be possibly be avoided in A Voyage to East-India: wherein some things are taken notice of…, an often quoted source (most of the book titles were like that). They even paid his men not to kill flies. When he asked about venomous animals like snakes and spiders, he writes that they told him, “it is their nature to do hurts, and they cannot help it, but as for themselves they further say, that God hath given them reason to shun those Creatures, but not liberty to destroy them.” Which sounds to me more like our prevailing 21st attitude.
My interest was piqued by references to the Dutch East India Trading company. They gained control of much of Indonesia in the 1600s, and therefore had a monopoly on certain spices (nutmeg, mace, cloves and cinnamon). They intentionally limited to production to keep prices high. The people of the Moluccas, or Spice Islands, had a custom of planting a clove tree to celebrate a newborn baby. The Dutch had a policy of cutting down or burning any clove tree not on their plantations to maintain their monopoly. The locals resented this, obviously, and protected some rogue trees. From one of these rogue trees, a Frenchman gained seeds and successfully grew clove trees in Zanzibar, breaking the Dutch monopoly. The East India Trading company made another appearance in a section on Japan. In response to European missionaries, the shogun introduced a policy of sakoku (translation ‘locked country’)—no foreigners allowed in and no Japanese person allowed out. This lasted from 1633 to 1853. The one exception was…the Dutch East India Trading Company, which was allowed a warehouse in Nagasaki for trading. So Europeans had Japanese goods, but no knowledge of their culture. One of the few Europeans to enter Japan during this time was Dutchman John Struys who wrote about his experience in The Voyages and Travels of John Struys (1684). I imagine a book on the history of the East India Trading Company would be an interesting read. I’ve heard it mentioned often in British historical fiction, but didn’t realize it was a Dutch company, nor their role in exploration.
December 20, 2016
This is a ridiculously entertaining read. By delving into historical accounts, journals, diaries and ship's logs - from many centuries ago (as far back at the 1500s) up to, comparatively, recent (19th) century - it brings to life accounts of the western world's first encounters with the weird and wonderful things on our planet.
It shifts seamlessly from the hilarious (accounts of explorer's first encounter with monkeys and what said animals did on their heads, from a great height!) to the downright strange (some of the explorer's drawings of what they had 'seen' are, frankly, bizarre!). There's a blend of reflective sadness too - being able to taste the excitement, anticipation or fear of the writers is a reminder of how little bedazzles us in our 21st century bubbles when we can just 'Google it'.
This book blends accessible history with travel, exploration, excitement and intrigue - with good humour, wit and no little charm mixed in. Reading it cannot fail to make you more interesting at dinner parties, more useful in pub quizzes and more well informed about our world in general.
Highly recommended.
It shifts seamlessly from the hilarious (accounts of explorer's first encounter with monkeys and what said animals did on their heads, from a great height!) to the downright strange (some of the explorer's drawings of what they had 'seen' are, frankly, bizarre!). There's a blend of reflective sadness too - being able to taste the excitement, anticipation or fear of the writers is a reminder of how little bedazzles us in our 21st century bubbles when we can just 'Google it'.
This book blends accessible history with travel, exploration, excitement and intrigue - with good humour, wit and no little charm mixed in. Reading it cannot fail to make you more interesting at dinner parties, more useful in pub quizzes and more well informed about our world in general.
Highly recommended.
July 27, 2020
Chinese translation to Penguins, Pineapples and Pangolins: First Encounters with the Exotic
November 7, 2016
An interesting and different book about animals, many little snippets by the same authors of yore. I didnt learn much and so much was so out of date that it was annoying, but that was what the author was showing. The illustrations were fun.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews