Straw Dogs: Thoughts On Humans and Other Animals - Acclaim

Acclaim

Gray’s work has been praised by, amongst others, the novelists J. G. Ballard, Will Self and John Banville, the theologian Don Cupitt, the journalist Bryan Appleyard, the political scientist David Runciman, the investor and philanthropist George Soros and the environmental scientist James Lovelock.

He has discussed James Lovelock's new ideas on evolution's next step; a species beyond human species that will be better able to co-exist with other species on this planet in the distant future.

His 1998 book False Dawn was praised by George Soros as 'a powerful analysis of the deepening instability of global capitalism' which 'should be read by all who are concerned about the future of the global economy'. John Banville praised both Black Mass and Gray's Anatomy, saying that 'Gray's assault on Enlightenment ideas of progress is timelier than ever'.

His 2002 book Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals has received particular praise. J. G. Ballard wrote that the book 'challenges most of our assumptions about what it means to be human, and convincingly shows that most of them are delusions’ and described it ‘a powerful and brilliant book’, ‘an essential guide to the new millennium’ and ‘the most exhilarating book I have read since Richard Dawkins's The Selfish Gene.’ Self called the book ‘a contemporary work of philosophy devoid of jargon, wholly accessible, and profoundly relevant to the rapidly evolving world we live in’ and wrote ‘I read it once, I read it twice and took notes. I arranged to meet its author so I could publicise the book – I thought it that good.’

In 2002, Straw Dogs was named a book of the year by J. G. Ballard in The Daily Telegraph; by George Walden in The Sunday Telegraph; by Will Self, Joan Bakewell, Jason Cowley and David Marquand in the New Statesman; by Andrew Marr in The Observer; by Jim Crace in The Times; by Hugh Lawson Tancred in The Spectator; by Richard Holloway in the Glasgow Herald; and by Sue Cook in The Sunday Express.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb has written that he considers John N. Gray the modern thinker for whom he has the most respect, calling him "prophetic".