#000462
Mind in the Waters: A Book to Celebrate the Consciousness of Whales and Dolphins
Joan McIntyre
A book assembled as an act of advocacy, at the height of the campaign against commercial whaling. Joan McIntyre — founder of Project Jonah — gathered it not as a single argument but as an anthology celebrating the minds of whales and dolphins, braiding cetacean brain science and behavior together with first-hand observation and poetry, from John Lilly and Farley Mowat to D.H. Lawrence, Neruda, and Michael McClure, and dressing it in color plates that make it half art object. Some of its 1970s optimism about dolphin cognition now reads as overreach, and Lilly's later reputation complicates his pages — but its real achievement, helping turn public feeling toward whale conservation, is historically solid, and its questions about non-human minds feel more current than ever.
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The editor
Joan McIntyre (later Joana McIntyre Varawa) was an American environmental activist who founded Project Jonah, one of the organizations at the forefront of the movement to protect whales and dolphins. She assembled this book as a deliberate act of advocacy during the campaign against commercial whaling.
The book
Mind in the Waters is a curated anthology rather than a single-author work, weaving together scientific studies of cetacean brains and behavior, first-hand observation, and poetry. Contributors range from scientist John Lilly and naturalist Farley Mowat to poets D.H. Lawrence, Pablo Neruda and Michael McClure. Sixteen color plates and numerous illustrations make it as much an art object as an argument.
How it has aged
Some of its 1970s science on dolphin cognition now reads as over-optimistic, and John Lilly's later reputation complicates his contributions. But the book's core achievement — helping turn public sentiment toward whale conservation — is historically real, and its ethical questions about non-human minds feel more current than ever.
For more context
Readers can trace its legacy forward into the modern literature on cetacean intelligence and the animal-ethics debates it helped seed.
Sources
- Type
- Book
- Author / Maker
- Joan McIntyre
- ISBN
- None
- Shelf
- Nature
- Location
- Colorado