Pit Bull

The controversial story of one infamous breed of dog--a New York Times Bestseller ("Animals" list).When Bronwen Dickey brought her new dog home, she saw no traces of the infamous viciousness in her affectionate pit bull. Which made her wonder- How had the breed-beloved by Teddy Roosevelt and Helen Keller-come to be known as a brutal fighter? Dickey's search for answers takes her from nineteenth-century New York dogfighting pits to early twentieth‑century movie sets, from the battlefields of Gettysburg to struggling urban neighborhoods. In this illuminating story of how a popular breed became demonized--and what role humans have played in the transformation--Dickey offers us an insightful view of Americans' relationship with their dogs.

“An NPR Best Book of 2016 A Boston Globe Best Book of 2016 "This is a very good book... Ms. Dickey has earned her reputation as a first-rate reporter." --The Wall Street Journal "Terrific... [Dickey] does more than simply dispel the many myths around pit bulls; she strives to explore what those myths can tell us about ourselves. This beautifully written, heartbreaking book is not just for dog lovers -- it''s for anyone interested in race, class, history and the complexity of media narratives." --NPR "Ms. Dickey not only writes about the ebb and flow of public fear and loathing, she takes the reader on a thoroughly comprehensible tour of genetics and behavioral science to explain why breeding never guarantees an individual dog''s personality, and shouldn''t be used to condemn it.... Picking out one breed to blame is neither warranted nor effective, and a reader of her book will be hard put to disagree. " -- The New York Times "Brilliant... A powerful and disturbing book that shows how the rise of the killer-pit bull narrative reflects many broader American anxieties and pathologies surrounding race, class, and poverty... A remarkable study of our capacities for cruelty and compassion toward dogs and other humans, and an eloquent argument for abandoning the fears and prejudices that have made pit bulls in particular the victims of mistreatment." -- Christian Science Monitor "Like the pit bull itself, this book is sturdy, complicated and resists easy categorization... As Dickey exhaustively demonstrates, there is no ''aggression gene'' and no such thing as a dangerous breed." -- The New York Times Book Review "In covering a subject that evokes strong, deep-seated emotions, Dickey herself refrains from making sweeping judgments about the pit-bull temperament. She neither condemns nor exalts these dogs. The story of the pit bull is complex, and at times heartbreaking. It''s fraught with cruelty and poverty, but also compassion, generosity, and, occasionally, clear-headed thinking. Somehow, Dickey manages to find hope for the future of this dog and its reputation." --LA Review of Books "Assiduously researched... Dickey is relentless in exposing the brutal racism and classism at the heart of the pit bull scare. For that reason alone, her book is an invaluable resource for those who want and need a counter-narrative to the usual stereotyping of animals. Pit Bull is an important study of how one animal and its context can reveal everything about the link between race, class, and ''animality''... Dickey is clearly a superb journalist ." --Current Affairs "Sustained and heavily researched... Pit Bull is very good at framing and contextualizing the swirl of fear and aversion these dogs induced... Informative, keenly argued and engaging." --San Francisco Chronicle "A tremendous contribution to our understanding not only of these dogs but also of our human relationships with them. There''s been too much hysteria about pit bulls, and Dickey shows that we''ve let myth and stereotype run wild when it comes to our thinking about these dogs."”

An NPR Best Book of 2016
A Boston Globe Best Book of 2016

“This is a very good book… Ms. Dickey has earned her reputation as a first-rate reporter.” —The Wall Street Journal

"Terrific... [Dickey] does more than simply dispel the many myths around pit bulls; she strives to explore what those myths can tell us about ourselves. This beautifully written, heartbreaking book is not just for dog lovers — it's for anyone interested in race, class, history and the complexity of media narratives." —NPR

"Ms. Dickey not only writes about the ebb and flow of public fear and loathing, she takes the reader on a thoroughly comprehensible tour of genetics and behavioral science to explain why breeding never guarantees an individual dog’s personality, and shouldn’t be used to condemn it.... Picking out one breed to blame is neither warranted nor effective, and a reader of her book will be hard put to disagree." —The New York Times

“Brilliant… A powerful and disturbing book that shows how the rise of the killer-pit bull narrative reflects many broader American anxieties and pathologies surrounding race, class, and poverty… A remarkable study of our capacities for cruelty and compassion toward dogs and other humans, and an eloquent argument for abandoning the fears and prejudices that have made pit bulls in particular the victims of mistreatment.” —Christian Science Monitor

“Like the pit bull itself, this book is sturdy, complicated and resists easy categorization… As Dickey exhaustively demonstrates, there is no ‘aggression gene’ and no such thing as a dangerous breed.” —The New York Times Book Review

"In covering a subject that evokes strong, deep-seated emotions, Dickey herself refrains from making sweeping judgments about the pit-bull temperament. She neither condemns nor exalts these dogs. The story of the pit bull is complex, and at times heartbreaking. It’s fraught with cruelty and poverty, but also compassion, generosity, and, occasionally, clear-headed thinking. Somehow, Dickey manages to find hope for the future of this dog and its reputation." —LA Review of Books

BRONWEN DICKEYis an essayist and journalist who writes regularly for the Oxford American. Her work has also appeared inThe New York Times,Slate, The Best American Travel Writing 2009,Newsweek,andOutside,among other publications. In 2009 she received a first-place Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Award and a MacDowell Colony residency grant. She lives in North Carolina.

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