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If a Lion Could Speak
Paperback
Series: If They Could Speak, Book 1
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Sep 11 2025
Pages: 72
Weight: 0.24
Height: 0.15 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote, If a lion could talk, we could not understand him. This lion would like a word.
He is an ageing male of the African savannah, and he has a great deal to tell you, most of it while lying down. Lions rest for about twenty hours a day, and he has used the time to think about the people who have studied his kind, painted them, carved them, worshipped them, hunted them and, lately, tried to save them.
He explains how a roar can carry about 8 kilometres and what the square vocal folds in his throat have to do with it. He admits, a little sheepishly, that the lionesses do most of the group hunting, and that the real power in a pride lies with a sisterhood of related females. He reveals what scientists learned about manes by setting out life-sized plush lions on the Serengeti, and why hyenas are not the scavengers you think they are.
Then he takes you back through time: to Ice Age Europe, when cave lions hunted on cold grasslands from Spain to Siberia and someone carved the Lion-man from mammoth ivory; to the lion hunts of Egyptian pharaohs and Assyrian kings; to the menagerie at the Tower of London, the lions of Trafalgar Square and the three lions of England. He tells the true story of the man-eaters of Tsavo, which brought a railway to a halt in 1898, and separates the legend from the evidence. And he remembers the lions with names: Elsa of Born Free, Christian, who was bought at Harrods, and Cecil, whose death in 2015 made headlines around the world.
Funny, warm and carefully researched, this book checks every fact and every quotation against real sources, and a closing section sets out what we know, what we don't, and the popular sayings about lions that turn out to be wrong.
If a Lion Could Speak is for curious readers of every age who love animals, history and a good story told by an unforgettable narrator.
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