Stubborn, foolish, and headstrong - the traits attributed to the donkey are not very flattering. Yet, few animals play as significant a role in cultural history as the donkey: it symbolizes the oppressed creature; Jesus rode into Jerusalem on one; Buridan's donkey became a philosophical paradigm because it starved between two haystacks it could not choose between. Jutta Person tells the surprisingly rich story of this burden animal, explores the character of the donkey, meets its breeders, and presents both domesticated and wild donkey species as well as the mule. Last but not least, she shows how intelligent this supposedly foolish animal with beautiful eyes is - and how much we can learn from it.