Category: Reviews

BOOKS: The Animals’ Lawsuit Against Humanity

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2005:

The Animals’ Lawsuit Against Humanity:
A Modern Adaptation of an Ancient Animal Rights Tale

Translated & adapted by Rabbi Anson Laytner
& Rabbi Dan Bridge. Edited by Matthew Kaufmann
Introduction by Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Illustrated by Kulsum Begum

Fons Vitae (49 Mockingbird Valley Dr., Louisville, KY 40207),
2005. 115 pages, paperback. $14.95.

 

Caring humans around the world have been troubled at how most
humans have treated animals for as long as written literature has
existed. The earliest writings meant to motivate other humans to
change their ways tried to make kindness toward animals a sacred
duty, as in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and to some extent
Judaism, and is often mentioned in the literature of other
religions, including many of the Hadiths of Bukhari, collecting the
sayings of Mohammed.

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BOOKS: Animal Rights In South Africa

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2005:

Animal Rights In South Africa by Michele Pickover
Double Storey Books (Mercury Crescent, Wetton, Cape Town 7880,
South Africa), 2005. 209 pages, paperback. 154 rand (about $22.00
U.S. .)

Pickover is a well-known and respected member of the
pitifully small South African animal rights community. In a country
where hunting cage-reared lions has become a significant rural
industry, her book is an important contribution to the causes of
both animal welfare and animal rights, between which she draws a
sharp distinction.
Early chapters describe the harm done to wild animals by
hunters, and analyse the so-called game industry, which facilitates
the slaughter. Pickover then summarizes the 1998-1999 Tuli elephant
scandal, involving the illegal capture of baby elephants in Botswana
whose subsequent abuse in South Africa was finally brought to a
semblance of courtroom justice in 2003.
Chapter 4 is a shocking expose of commercial exploitation of
wildlife in Kruger National Park. Pickover exposes the South African
National Parks Board as in essence a game farming operation, using
the national wildlife heritage as a private stock-in-trade.

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BOOKS: Intelligence in Nature

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2005:

Intelligence in Nature: An Inquiry into Knowledge by Jeremy Narby
Tarcher/Penguin (375 Hudson St., New York, NY 10014), 2005. 256
pages, hardback. $35.00.

Having been enthralled by Jeremy Narby’s The Cosmic Serpent
(1998), I was pleased when Narby’s second book Intelligence in
Nature came in the mail. It was not a disappointment.
Intelligence in Nature is more-or-less a sequel to The Cosmic
Serpent, continuing to illustrate the parallels between “primitive”
shamanic cultures and modern biology that Narby discovered in his
study of botany. But whereas The Cosmic Serpent dealt mainly with
molecular biology, particularly the structure of DNA, Intelligence
in Nature covers a much broader spectrum, dealing not only with
genetics but also with animal behavior and adaptation.
The ability of individuals to adapt to their environment,
found in even the most primitive of life-forms, is described by the
Japanese term Chi-Sei, meaning “to know.” Throughout the book Narby
uses Chi-Sei to describe the apparent intelligence of everything from
birds to slime molds.

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BOOKS: Wild Dogs: past & present

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2005:

Wild Dogs: past & present
by Kelly Milner Halls
Darby Creek Publishing
(7858 Industrial Parkway, Plain City, OH 43064), 2005. 64 pages,
hardcover, illustrated. $18.95.

Addressing children, Kelly Milner Halls in Wild Dogs pleads
for appreciation and tolerance of coyotes, dingoes, dholes, foxes,
wolves, and other wild canines. Often persecuted as alleged
predators of livestock, each in truth preys much more heavily on
rodents and other so-called nuisance wildlife.
Wild Dogs is overall a unique and fascinating look at dogs
and dog relatives who predate humanity. Tracing the evolution of
dogs, Milner Halls points out that each variety of living wild dog
is a remnant of the evolution of current domestic pet dogs, and
observes that contrary to stereotype, not all primitive dogs are
ferocious carnivores. Many routinely consume some plant food. The
mild-mannered maned wolf of southern South America is especially fond
of fruit.
Much more could have been said about primitive dogs, humans,
and our influences on each other, had Milner Halls not been obliged
to work within a set length limit.

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BOOKS: First Friends

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2005:

First Friends
by Katherine M. Rogers
St. Martin’s Press
(175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010), 2005.
263 pages, paperback. $24.95.

The title is carefully chosen for this
history of the interaction of dogs and humans.
Note that it is “First Friends’” and not “Best
Friends.”
Katherine M. Rogers, in this erudite and
sometimes repetitively thorough treatise on the
use and treatment of dogs in English and
classical literature, deals in depth with the
two extremes: dog lovers and dog detesters.
“For some people dogs are no more than
beasts, and it is fatuous, if not impious,”
Rogers writes, “to value them in anything like
human terms.”
Rogers places herself between the two
extremes, adopting the phrase “dog interested,”
meaning that she believes dogs should be well
treated but that it is better for both dogs and
humans if dogs are kept a subordinate place.

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BOOKS: Meat Market: Animals, Ethics & Money

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2005:

Meat Market: Animals, Ethics & Money
by Erik Marcus
Brio Press (244 Blakeslee, Hill Road, Suite 5, Newfield, NY 14867), 2005.
273 pages, hardcover. $21.95.

Erik Marcus writes crisply in this book about the evils of
factory farming. He disposes of common misconceptions and
exaggerated arguments, frequently employed both by industry
apologists and Animal Rights activists. His logic is clearly
expressed and his prose flows tightly. In fact the book is so easy
to read that it would make an excellent text book for humane
education and animal law courses.
Marcus examines the transformation of animal agriculture
since 1950 and analyses the growth of factory farming at the expense
of small family-owned farms.
Aiming squarely at urban activists who have no clear
understanding of farming methods, he introduces us to the life of a
layer hen, describing in harrowing detail her tortured life. Then
he does the same for broiler chickens, pigs, dairy cows, and beef
cattle.

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BOOKS: Animals: Why They Must Not Be Brutalized

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2005:

Animals: Why They Must Not Be Brutalized
by J.B. Suconik
Nuark Publishing (30 Amberwood Parkway, Ashland, OH 44805),
2002. 160 pages, hard cover. $28.00

Suconik’s book is basically a moral treatise against the
arguments commonly used to support vivisection. Give us the whole
balance sheet, he implores vivisection apologists, not just an item
from the profit and loss account. Then we can accurately determine
the legitimacy of the whole enterprise.
Don’t just argue, for example, that without biomedical
research on animals we can forget about a cure for AIDS. Tell us how
much it will cost, how many animals will be used, how cruel are the
procedures and what are the alternatives.
Sure, if you spend millions tormenting animals for years you
are bound to learn something, sooner or later. But if better ways
exist, then the millions spent on vivisection will have been
wastefully employed.

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BOOKS: Clara’s Grand Tour & General Howe’s Dog

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2005:

Clara’s Grand Tour
by Glynis Ridley
Atlantic Monthly Press (841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003), 2004.
222 pages, hardcover. $22.00.

General Howe’s Dog
by Caroline Tiger
Penguin Group (375 Hudson St., New York, NY 10014), 2005.
192 pages, hardcover. $18.95.

Historical scholars Glynis Ridley and Caroline Tiger each
happened across an intriguing mention of an animal while
investigating other events of the mid-18th century. Each
reconstructed the story of the animal, as best she could from
surviving documentation. Each produced a book about her findings,
with remarkably different results.
Ridley produced an award-winning account of the travels and
influence of a young female Indian rhinoceros, Clara, whose mother
was killed by hunters in Assam, India, circa 1738-1739. Hauled
overland to Calcutta, Clara was raised to adulthood in the home of
Dutch East India Company director J.A. Sichterman, initially as a
household pet. Outgrowing her quarters, Clara was sold in early
1741 to Dutch sea captain Douwemont Van der Meer. Van der Meer
sailed to Leiden with her.

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BOOKS: Miracle Dog

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2005:

Miracle Dog
by Randy Grim
Alpine Publications
(P.O. Box 7027, Loveland, CO 80537), 2005. 120 pages, paperback. $19.95.

Quentin, a shelter dog, in August 2003 survived the St.
Louis Animal Regulation gas chamber, was adopted by Stray Rescue
founder Randy Grim, and became an icon of the no-kill movement.
Grim himself became a icon of the no-kill movement about a
year earlier, through the publication of a biography, The man who
talks to dogs, by Melinda Roth.
In Miracle Dog, Grim tells his own story. Like our
colleague Cicely Blumberg, here in Cape Town, South Africa, Grim
devotes his life to helping orphaned, injured, and lost dogs in the
bad parts of town.
Among the most telling parts of Miracle Dog are Grim’s observations
of how people reacted to Quentin’s sudden celebrity status. Grim
recounts that 700 people wrote to him offering to take Quentin for
adoption. When they were told, “Sorry, he is staying with
me, but won’t you please save another dog from the gas chamber,”
there were no takers.

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