Animal Revolution : Changing Attitudes Towards Speciesism

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Summary: The coming of vegetarian civilization
Review: This is a fascinating and useful account of man's philosophic and religious mindsets toward the animal world, and rides the tide of the animal rights movement, with a history of same since the resurgence of activism in the sixties onward. A good companion to Singer's Animal Liberation, the book shares with it what I would consider an excessively solicitous attitude toward Darwinism, although the latter provides indirectly the characteristically openended injunction to see the continuum of man and animal brethren. In fact, how account for the evolution of this emergentist trend in history toward the post-carnivorous human? This apart, the splendid portrait in detail of the confusion over man-animal relations fills the void in one's awareness of this issue, and one senses the onset of a one-way valve here: there is no going back. The last excuses for the passage have fallen away in an age of scientific genetics and nutritional research. The man in the business devouring the flesh of animals is a morbid spectacle of an extinct 'species', goodbye to all that.

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Summary: Fascinating. Thought provoking. Unique. A mine of info.
Review: This is a fascinating book. It traces the whole history of the relationship between humans and animals and the development of the movement in recent decades to protect animals. Philosophers have led the current revival of interest in animal rights. In Europe the issue has gone further and a mass of new legislation has been passed in recent years to protect animals. If animals can suffer why should they not have rights? But why does Europe lead the US on this? Why is America being left behind? Are Americans less rational or less compassionate? Ryder addresses these issues (which are rarely addressed elsewhere). This is one of the main reasons I find the book invaluable. He also gives a wealth of scientific evidence to support the case for better treatment and respect for animals. I really think that Ryder's voice is worth listening to - after all, he gave to Peter Singer the idea of 'speciesism' and provided much of the material that Singer used in his classic Animal Liberation way back in 1975.