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In this fascinating book Michel Pastoreau provides a history of the bear in Europe, looking at relations between humans and bears, and the bear as cultural and symbolic signifier. He shows the importance of the bear in religion, mythology and art from the Palaeolithic to the Classical age, and demonstrates that the very picture of the bear as a figure of strength, reverance and even worship proved to be its downfall in the Christian era, as the medieval church led the charge to eliminate what became seen as an animal emblematic of paganism. He continues the story to the present day, looking at the bear in folklore, and in its distinctly less terrifying modern guise as a teddy-bear. Originally published in French in 2007.