Most anatomy books are dry. I'm a radiology resident, and have looked through several trying to find one that would be easily digestible. This is the one. The text is full of interesting explanations of structure and function from the standpoint of evolutionary biology. Why do the testicles descend from the abdomen during development? The authors go back to the mesonephros of primitive ocean vertebrates and explain it in a few simple sentences.
Pictures are more descriptive than accurate; it's no atlas. But if you like learning by understanding instead of by rote, I think this book will do you proud.

While I agree with what the other reviewers have said, I want to add three points: 1) Carmtmill does not come across as heavy-handed or doctrinaire in his criticisms of hunting. Since the debate on this issue can be quite shrill, his measured tone is a relief. 2) His scholarship is of a very high quality. All of his claims are thoroughly documented. Since one of his chapters concerns the topic of my dissertation, I can say that he presents complicated matters clearly and without any distortions. 3) His writing style is simply excellent. I have seldom read a serious, academic book that had such an engaging style - I read it in one sitting! I would give this 4 1/2 stars if I could.

Cartmill's "A View to a Death in the Morning" is a scholarly mix of anthropology, history, sociology, and biology -- all focused on the hydra-headed question of "Must man prey on and kill animals?" This is one of those subjects that each reader will address from his own biases and experiences, a fact acknowledged by the author when he tells us that "the motives of hunting are vague and visceral; nonhunters find them hard to understand." Clearly, this author's perspective puts him in the SPCA/PETA corner. As his thesis unfolds, this increasingly becomes the inescapable place to be when rationally critiquing the bloodlust that drives modern man to this activity ("sport" doesn't honestly apply, given the odds-on outcomes of the hunt.)

Hunters will hurl this title into the fire fairly quickly unless they have a capacity to maintain composure in the face of a reasoned, well-defended argument; likewise, those anti-hunters will find cogent proofs and a compendium of socio-cultural allusions, anecdotes, and references to bolster their perspective. From the Bible to Bambi, it's all here -- except for the curious omissions of the bison's decimation, Melville's philosophical focus in "Moby Dick," commentary on Faulkner's "The Bear," and Hemingway's fiction and nonfiction generally. In this last regard, Cartmill is cagily self-serving since he states that "hunters have trouble articulating and defending their motives."

Bottom line: Are we natural-born "killer apes" who've only recently become afflicted by the "Bambi Syndrome"?

The book explores many of the questions of hunting and anti-hunting. It spends a surprising amount of time considering the question of whether human evolution was driven by hunting (perhaps because that has been one of the justifications for the continuation of hunting traditions), as well as a review of the emergence of anti-hunting themes and the animal rights movement. It makes an obvious error in the interpretation of Leupold's statement in the assignment of rights in the discussion of Leupold's land ethic. The point of the book is to develop arguments against many of the current justifications for hunting, and for the emergence of the notion of animal rights. It does not do a very good job of describing the current hunting ethic in the US, nor does it describe the rather complex gradiations in that population.