Stowaway: The Disreputable Exploits of the Rat

A cultural and social history of the rat, examining how one creature achieved total world domination and has inspired such love and loathing.

Rats represent the worst of us - or at least, that's what we tell ourselves. They are rapacious, over-sexed, pestilent and, on occasion, cannibalistic. But, as with all 'vermin', rats are in fact a mirror species, reflecting back to us our worst excesses. They are also a creature to which we owe a lot. Arguably no other animal has done more for the advance of human medicine than the rat.

In Stowaway, Joe Shute unpicks this complex relationship between human and rat, documenting the arrival of the brown rat in the West during the expansion of global trade and how it has pushed our black rat species to the brink. Joe charts its course through history - from diaries kept by soldiers in the trenches, to present day where an estimated 10 million rats are believed to live in Britain alone.

As well as tracking rats in the wild and meeting experts to help unpick rat intelligence and social structures, Joe attempts to overcome his own aversion to these often reviled rodents - even adopting two pet rats to better understand them.

Stowaway is a tale of rat catchers, crumbling buildings and back alleys, taking the reader into a part of the natural world they normally hurry past. It is also a story of the human condition, asking why we deem some animals acceptable and condemn others to the shadows.