This scholarly look at the political history of the elephant gives a thorough review of the animal's origins in ancient Asia and Africa, its cultural significance as a beast of burden, and many other aspects of the role played by the elephant and its language equivalents in human civilization from earliest antiquity to the present time. Says Schlegel: "The possession of the elephant, as the most powerful of all beasts of burden, has promoted the commercial activity and increased the warlike powers of states; in the course of innumerable wars the elephants have been the allies of man, in the southern parts of Asia from the most remote times, and for some centuries back in the countries bordering upon the Mediterranean sea. The art of taming the elephant, and particularly of breaking him in for war, has been practiced in India from times beyond the reach of authentic history, and there it was originally and exclusively indigenous. When in later ages the same thing was undertaken in various countries of Africa, it was done in imitation of what had been learnt in India, and that not by the natives of those countries, who had neither means nor inclination, but by people in a higher state of civilization who had settled in that part of the world."
