The Longest Struggle: Animal Advocacy from Pythagoras to Peta
In the first chapter of his very readable history of the animal-protection philosophy, Phelps refers to the killing of nonhuman animals as "the crime with no beginning." In other words, humans have hunted animals since before they were human, and carried this exploitation of animals throughout history. If civilization can be defined as the human break with nature, then all human civilizations have been built on animal slavery (domestication) and the systematic killing of animals. Phelps, a vegetarian and animal-activist author, follows the history of philosophical thought about the exploitation of animals and various animal advocates who have fought for animal rights from roughly 600 BCE to the present. These philosophical underpinnings provide the roots of the animal-rights movement, the history of which fills the rest of the book. The founding of the RSPCA; its American counterpart, the ASPCA; the antivivisection movement; and the more radical actions of the ALF and PETA are all covered. Phelps wears his personal beliefs on his sleeve but provides a comprehensive history of the animal-rights movement. Bent, Nancy