|
|
| Welcome
to our Book Review Archive |
 |
Every
month Society & AnimalsForum.org
features a book that we think deserves wide attention.
When you click on the link below, you will be able to
purchase the title on Amazon.com. |
Society
& Animals Forum is part of Amazon.com's
associate program, so that means that every purchase
you make that originates here at Society
& AnimalsForum.org generates
money for Society & Animals Forum
that will support our mission critical projects.
Please also check
out our Reference List that
lists hundreds of other titles that deal with ethics,
human-animal studies, the animal rights movement, companion
animals, and more. Thank you for your support! |
| |
|
| What
Animals Want: Expertise and advocacy in laboratory
animal welfare policy |
| by
Larry Carbone |
|
With
degrees in veterinary medicine and the history
and philosophy of science, Carbone is uniquely
qualified to deal with the various contexts involved
in understanding the issues raised by our treatment
of animals in the laboratory. The book delivers
in informed and thoughtful discussion of scientific,
ethical, policy, sociological, and historical
contexts.
Although
not arguing from an animal rights position, he
raises questions treated in that literature –
do animals feel pain, do they suffer, in what
sense are they conscious, does their life have
a value?
He
also treats problems of policy: Who decides how
we treat animals in the lab and on what grounds?
How have we constructed the “lab animal?”
Who are the players that determine their fate?
Through consideration of the history and
politics of the implementation of the Animal Welfare
Act, the exclusion of rodents and birds from its
purview, and technical and turf-issues in evaluating
the most humane forms of euthanizing rodents,
he illuminates the conceptual and political complexities
of these important issues.
As
a professional lab-based veterinarian, Carbone
is critical of his profession and issues a call
for a more progressive and advocacy-based role
for veterinarians.
As
the title suggests, Carbone sees the importance
of an empirically based science of animal welfare
that will substantiate their “wants,”
needs, capabilities and identify ways of meeting
allowing them to realize them.
|
|
|
|
|
The Animal Ethics Reader |
|
by Susan J. Armstrong (Editor), Richard G.
Botzler (Editor) |
ISBN
0-415-27589-x Routledge Press
The
Animal Ethics Reader is a great book! I was
fortunate to receive (unsolicited) from
the publisher a complimentary copy. Armstrong
is a Professor of Philosophy and Women's
Studies and Botzler is a Professor
of Wildlife, both are at Humboldt State
University. Their areas of expertise
combine nicely to provide a book of 86 readings
across a broad spectrum of animal issues.
The
articles which the authors have selected
are topically organized by the following
10 headings: Theories of Animal Ethics,
Animal Capacities, Primates and Cetaceans,
Animals for Food, Animal Experimentation,
Animals and Biotechnology, Ethics and Wildlife,
Zoos, Aquariums, and Animals in Entertainment,
Animal Companions, and Animal Law/Animal
Activism.
Each
topical unit begins with an Introduction
and concludes with Study Questions
and Annotated Further Readings.
The articles have been culled from
a variety of journals and books
in many fields in addition to philosophy.
The Suggested Readings also are representative
of the disciplines which address the
issues of animal ethics.
The
authors have selected articles that represent
many diverse views and opinions in this
hotly debated field, with the goal of offering
fair representation to conflicting views.
The articles are abbreviated from their
original sources, as it is the book is nearly
600 pages.
Because
of the depth and breadth of coverage the
authors/editors have provided, it would
be a very fine book for a general
college course in Human-Animal Studies as
well as a philosophy course in Animal Ethics.
My only concern is with the title of the
book. I think that the title may deter some
non-philosophers from taking a look at the
book and that would be a disservice to this
volume. Maybe in the next edition,
there will be a bit more generic title...
maybe The Animal Issues Reader?
|
|
|
|
|
| If
You Tame Me |
|
by Leslie Irvine |
Assistant Professor of Sociology at University
of Colorado, Boulder (paperback ISBN 1-59213-241-3
Temple University Press, 2004)
Reviewer's comments have been excerpted from
the book's foreword by Professor
Marc Bekoff (reprinted with his generous
permission).
I love Leslie's book. It is accessible and
at the same time well researched and scholarly,
filled with "hard science" (what
I call "science sense") and anecdotes
(one of the two nasty "A" words
and what some of pejoratively call "soft
science"). Leslie is squarely situated
in the group that at once respects scientific
data but also knows that there is more to
the study of animals than pure science....Leslie's
research involved careful observation of
behavior on the part of human and non-human
beings. It is a rigorous study. Yet
it blends rigor with compassion, social
responsibility, and heart into a recipe
that the Austrian scientist Anton Moser
calls "deep science".
The main point of Leslie's book is that
people's relationships with companion animals
are what they are because animals,
like people, have selves....She uses vivid
examples to illustrate how this selfhood
becomes apparent to their human companions
in the course of everyday interaction.
But this book does more than offer a theory
of animal selfhood. It calls for action:
proactive compassionate activism, a practice
that can heal the wounds we inflict on other
animals and the wounds we suffer when we
do so.
The possibilities that this book opens are
endless. They are also challenging and frustrating....Venture
into this text with an open mind. More important,
read it with an open heart.
We thank Professor Bekoff for his generosity
in allowing us to use excerpts from his
foreword for this month's book review.
Professor Bekoff is a Fellow
of the Animal Behavior Society and a recipient
of its Exemplar Award for major long-term
contributions to the field of animal behavior. He
is the author of numerous books and the
editor of the soon to be published (December
2004) 3 volume Encyclopedia of Animal
Behavior
(www.greenwood.com ).
|
|
|
|
|
| Pets
and Our Mental Health: The Why, the What,
and the How |
| by
Johannes Odendaal |
|
(Vantage Press,New York (2002) is a slim paperback which
has an important message about the underlying
physiological basis of human-pet relationships. Dr.
Odendaal has doctoral degrees in
three different fields: Zootechnology, Psychology
and Physiology. He is uniquely qualified to
write this book.
The academic study of human-pet interactions
and the general lack of empirically validated theoretical
models which can explain these relationships
is addressed by this book. In
the first part of the book Odendaal reviews
nearly every Interaction Theory of
"personology" and indicates in
what capacities pets might function
in these interaction models. He also reviews
the current status of Animal-Facilitated
Psychotherapy.
While this is interesting, what makes this
book a most important read for anyone
interested in the understanding of human-pet
relationships, is the latter part of the
book in which Dr. Odendaal describes his
experiment on the physiological changes
that dogs and people experience when they
interact. Knowledge of these physiological
(neurohormonal as well as blood pressure)
changes begins to provide a theoretical
model which should serve as the basis for
future researchers to explain human health
outcomes associated with companion animals
and Animal-Facilitated Psychotherapy.
I
will be using this book for my Psychology
of Human-animal Relations class in the future.
In my opinion it is a must read for all
in the field.
|
|
|
|
|
| The
Ethics of Diet |
| by
Howard Williams |
"The
Ethics of Diet" is a reprint
of a book which was originally published
in 1883, with a second edition appearing
in 1896 and an abridged edition in 1907.
This edition includes an "Introduction
to the Illinois Edition," which is
what the publisher is choosing to call this
edition so as to avoid confusion with the
first printings.
Carol
Adams has written the introduction.
I first became Acquainted with Carol through
her book, "The Sexual Politics of Meat:
A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory."
Being a long-time feminist but a short-time
vegetarian, I was curious as to how those
two were connected. Because I enjoyed
her scholarly voyage between feminism and
vegetarianism, I was curious to discover
the roots of vegetarianism in Williams'
book. What I discovered upon reading the
Illinois edition was that the discussion
of eating nonhuman animals is not a recent
occurrence. Williams includes writers from
Hesiod of the eighth century B.C. to Schopenhauer
who died in 1860. He gives a brief
background of many individuals in the years
between, such as Plato, Rousseau and Shelley,
just to name a few very well known authorities.
Then Williams elaborates on these individuals'
ideas relating to vegetarianism.
The
Illinois edition is actually a reprint of
the first edition, published in 1883.
Included in the first edition was an "appendix"
by Williams. The Illinois edition
now has an "appendix" which includes
Williams’ introduction to his 1896
edition as well his entries on historical
figures and new appendixes that were included
in the 1883 edition.
The
University of Illinois Press has obviously
attempted to be totally inclusive and all-encompassing
of Williams' works. This is a delight
since the information is now self-contained.
I personally found Williams’ writing
to be archaic, typical of the late 18th
century. It is difficult to read,
very slow going, and I had difficulty in
always comprehending context.
For
individuals who are devoted to scholarly
study of the history of Vegetarianism, this
is a definitive and useful volume.
It is considered, after all, a foundational
document in vegetarianism history.
For those of us who wish to practice vegetarianism
for our own private or perhaps soulful reasons,
this book is extremely "heavy"
albeit somewhat enlightening.
|
|
|
|
|
| Stories
Rabbits Tell |
| By
Susan E. Davis and Margo DeMello |
| This
guest book review was written by Debbie Coultis,
CEO of PAN, www.pan-inc.org . PAN offers a
distance learning course in Animal Assisted
Therapy. After
reading Stories
Rabbits Tell: A Natural and Cultural History
of a Misunderstood Creature, I decided
to add the book as required reading in Animals
in Healing Environments: Animal Assisted
Therapy and Education Certificate Program
that PAN teaches in cooperation with DePaul
University.
Revered
as a symbol of fertility and sexuality,
beloved as a pet, and widely represented
in the myths, art and collectibles of almost
every culture, the rabbit is one of the
most popular creatures in the animal kingdom.
Ironically, it has also been one of the
most misunderstood and abused.
In
Stories Rabbits
Tell :A Natural and Cultural History of
a Misunderstood Creature, journalist
Susan Davis and anthropologist Margo DeMello
present a comprehensive look at the rabbit
as an animal that is fascinating both in
its own right, and as a cultural icon. In
doing so, the book explores how one species
can be simultaneously presented as a symbol
of childhood ( Peter Rabbit and Goodnight
Moon), worshipped as a symbol of female
sexuality (The Playboy Bunny), dismissed
(and mistreated) as a "dumb bunny"
in domesticity, and loathed as a pest in
the wild.
"They
look like cute, fluffy, not-so-bright animals,"
DeMello says. "But both wild and domestic
rabbits are intelligent animals who display
complex social needs and behaviors. Moreover,
their image has carried a multiplicity of
meanings throughout the centuries: from
symbols of virginity to models of perverted
sexuality, from bearers of good luck to
harbingers of doom, and from innocent child's
pet to witch's familiar."
The
authors analyze these stereotypes and counter
them with analyses of real rabbit behavior,
while exploring current debates on animal
emotions, intelligence, and welfare. In
what Publishers Weekly has described as
a "clear-eyed review" of conditions
in commercial rabbit industries, the authors
present an investigation into conditions
in the rabbit meat, fur, laboratory, and
pet industries.
"In
the course of our investigation we discovered
that even people who have been raising rabbits
commercially for years didn't know much
about rabbit behavior, needs, or even anatomy,”
notes Davis. "We also learned that
rabbits that are to be slaughtered in this
country are accorded fewer legal protections-in
terms of the way they can be killed-than
beef cattle or even chickens. This has led
to some very unfortunate practices in the
rabbit industries.”
Stories Rabbits Tell provides invaluable
information and insight into the social
life, natural history, and symbolic aspects
of an animal that many love, but most barely
know.
|
|
|
|
|
