This attractively illustrated and well-written book is the work of a writer whose scholarship has previously illuminated subjects that range from Roman gems to the history of collections. MacGregor was initially trained as an archaeologist but spent much of his career as a senior curator at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, responsible for the Department of Antiquities. The museum's collections have been the subject of several of his earlier publications but he has a long-standing interest in the interactions between humans and animals that has crystallised in this latest book.

The scale and scope of the work is introduced in a short author's preface. MacGregor's aim is to provide an overview of interrelationships between the human and animal world of the British Isles over the millennium since the Norman Conquest. His own definition of his approach is that it is historiographical rather than historical, and he draws his raw material from archaeologists, historians and contemporary manuscripts and diaries, using a wide variety of visual images to enrich his text. These latter include paintings and drawings, portraits, manuscript illustrations, monumental brasses, photographs and even advertisements from the manufacturers of animal equipment. The focus, as the title tells us, is material encounters, whether these are by capture, by confinement, by ownership, by breeding, by sporting venture, by slaughter and consumption or even by vicarious mistreatment in the name of spectacle or amusement. The species coverage of his topic does not attempt to be comprehensive despite the book's length: boundaries have been drawn. There is no more than passing reference to pets or zoo animals while in contrast horses have been given a whole chapter to themselves, and there are doves, swans, poultry, freshwater fish and bees as well as larger hunted species and the familiar farm animals. The organisation of the book is thematic rather than chronological and each chapter explores in some detail particular aspects of human–animal interaction. In addition to the chapter on the horse the other main topics addressed are hunting, sports and pastimes, farm animals and a wide range of those smaller wild and semi-wild creatures that have in different ways and at different times supplemented or added variety to our diet.

The former museum curator has created a book that is in some sense akin to a museum of curiosities. In the same way that a visitor to an exhibition is drawn to examine an unfamiliar or unexpected object by an attractive display, the reader's interest here is easily engaged by the combination of informative description, contemporary comment and well-chosen illustration. We learn of the technicalities of badger hunting and of the behaviour of the badger in response. We are shown the elaborate markings made on the beaks of swans to signify ownership of creatures that were once largely reserved for the tables of the elite. Increasing mechanisation and the inexorable growth of towns over the last hundred years have removed the opportunities available and the necessity for most of us to experience the wide variety of animal encounters that were once so much part of everyday life in country and town. Much of what was once familiar is now far removed from the reader's own experiences and has become surprising or previously unconsidered.

MacGregor offers more than the mere stimulation and satisfaction of curiosity and a number of broad themes run through the text. One addressed in several contexts prompts the reader to reflect on changing definitions of and attitudes to animal cruelty and the ways in which some of the worst excesses of human behaviour to animals have been controlled through the development of protective legislation. Concerns about human exploitation of animals are now part of the much wider environmental impact debate and here we find some expected examples of ways in which our actions have resulted in the near extinction of some species. However, we also learn that human action, while not necessarily motivated by altruism, has sometimes served to protect other creatures.

My personal preference would have been for systematic in-text referencing and a consolidated bibliography, although there is a bibliography for each chapter. Particularly puzzling, given the amount and variety of visual material included, and the strong contribution it makes to the volume, is the omission of a list of illustrations. These are minor gripes and I thoroughly recommend this book to general and specialist readers alike.