Hunting is one of the most fundamental and significant of human social activities. Yet few issues can guarantee such controversy and such a dramatic popularisation of opinion. In this, the first full serious history of the subject for a generation, Rupert Isaacson puts hunting for live prey in its proper historical and social perspective. Isaacson's unique perspective as both practitioner and critic, his refusal to fudge the moral and ethical issues and his scrupulous fairness to both sides of the debate make this book both a beautiful record of one of the most enduring and complex of all human instincts and an essential contribution to the modern political controversy over hunting to hounds.