Ice Bear

"Engelhard's thought-provoking iconography explores in depth the multitude of cultural roles played by the polar bear."—David Fox, Anchorage Press

"Essayist and wilderness guide Engelhard examines the intertwined history of polar bears and humans in this fascinating look at how we have interpreted the species. . . . Of particular interest now as polar ice melts."—Nancy Bent, Booklist

"'Iconic' is the marketing cliché of our times, applied as unthinkingly to wildlife as it is to biscuits. But here, Michael Engelhard digs deeper, tracing how the polar bear came to occupy its place in contemporary culture and, in the process, suggesting what the mechanics of iconography say about us."—Mike Unwin, BBC Wildlife Magazine

"Like the whale, the polar bear is a seismographic animal, its fate a sensory prediction of our own. Michael Engelhard's gorgeous synoptic survey of this icy cultural symbol speaks to this terrible, wonderful beauty, a paradoxical emblem of a world out of kilter. Beautifully written and tellingly illustrated, Engelhard's Ice Bear sits on top of our world, regnant, threatened, intrinsically and endlessly evocative of the ever vexed meeting of human and natural history."—Philip Hoare, author of The Sea Inside

"A great book about the greatest and most formidable of polar predators."—Richard Ellis, author of On Thin Ice: The Changing World of the Polar Bear