Top 25 Animal Liberation Periodicals

Most are free to view online, but the price is shown next to those which aren’t. See here for the same list sorted by theme.

.


In Short

.

.


Monthly

Vegan Life – £3.35

About more than a meat and dairy free diet – the magazine covers all aspects of living a cruelty-free lifestyle, from food and sustainability, to animal compassion and environmental issues. It is the go-to resource for anyone interested in plant-based food and culture.

.

.


Bi-Monthly

Little Green Seedling

All things compassionate, sustainable and vegan! Covering; animal rights activism, vegan food, vegan permaculture, meditation and yoga, rewilding, green living, minimalism, alternative living spaces (tiny houses, vans, etc.), creating your ideal life & reconnecting with nature.

.

Minnesota Conservation Volunteer

“This magazine is as much a Minnesota tradition as ice fishing and summer weekends at the lake,” said editor-in-chief Kathleen Weflen. “Some people refer to us as their little National Geographic. People feel it’s their magazine.” Though the Volunteer is a university publication, Weflen said it has always been given autonomy. “We don’t have to get approval from commissioners for stories, and we’ve never had a story pulled,” said Weflen. “I can’t say they’re always happy.” But the well-regarded magazine clearly is a good public relations vehicle for an agency that often is in the hot seat.

.

The Animals Voice – $3 Digital & $10 Post

Laura Moretti founded The Animals Voice in 1986. Coupling her passion for the rights of animals with her design and writing skills, she began publishing the magazine as a means to unite the various animal protection groups in existence at the time — because there’s strength in numbers.

.

The Ethical Consumer – £5

Each issue features detailed product guides, news of ethical products and campaigns, in-depth features, opinion, comment, boycott updates, readers’ letters, and much more. Discover the truth behind the products we buy and the companies we buy them from.

.

Animal Culture – $10 Digital

Aspires to educate, motivate, and celebrate by featuring exclusive and timely interviews with artists, writers, and other animal advocates, along with book reviews, humane education, visual culture information, cruelty-free product reviews, plant-based recipes, and legislative alerts.

Addresses head-on the issues that animals confront—such as their lives in shelters and the harsh conditions they face in the food, entertainment, fashion, and research industries. The magazine shines a spotlight on those animals who are hidden, misunderstood, and not listened to—as well as those human beings who are fighting to protect them.

.

.


Quarterly

Eurogroup for Animals

Research and Lobbying.

.

Earth Island

Combining investigative journalism, thought-provoking commentary, and art to highlight the subtle but profound connections between the environment and other contemporary issues. We go beyond daily headlines to explore environmental concerns from a wide range of perspectives — from the personal to the political, the local to the global — and produce the type of investigative reporting and narrative writing found in few other environmental magazines. We put our principles next to our reporting and marshal the facts to make a passionate argument for defending Earth. Our unique brand of environmental journalism is a key resource for anyone eager to help protect our shared planet.

.

World Wildlife (WWF)

World Wildlife magazine provides an inspiring, in-depth look at the connections between animals, people and our planet. Published quarterly by WWF, the magazine helps make you a part of our efforts to solve some of the most pressing issues facing the natural world.

.

Viva! Life

No general description available. The latest issue features an interview with radio presenter Sarah Jane Crawford and a feature on their 25th Anniversary.

.

The Vegan (The Vegan Society) – £3 Digital or Post

Are you looking for up-to-date information regarding all things vegan? Are you tired of reading through magazines only to find minimal vegan content? Well, despair no more! You can subscribe to The Vegan Society’s quarterly magazine The Vegan, packed full of vegan content ranging from news, food, interviews, current issues, book reviews and of course, some fabulous and creative recipes. Read about issues as diverse as raw foods, senior nutrition, vegan celebs and vegan festivals – there’s always something for everyone.

.

Driftwood – $4.25 Digital & $12.50 Print

If you aspire to be the ultimate vegan globetrotter, this is the magazine for you. Each issue is full of vegan travel stories and profiles of prominent figures in the community. The magazine describes itself as a “travel and culture digest for the graduated vegan”.

.

VegNews –  $5 USD

The latest news in the vegan world, travel, recipes, interviews with animal rights activists and plant-based celebrities, practical advice and much more are packed into each issue of this must-read magazine.

.

Laika – $5 Digital & $8 Post

A melting pot of all things vegan from fashion, beauty, food, travel, and activism. The magazine seeks to reflect how amazing and vibrant a lifestyle focused on kindness can be.

.

Thrive – $5 USD

If you are looking for tips and tricks to improve this New Year, this is the magazine you want. Thrive’s mission statement is to provide inspiration and tools to all who seek to better themselves. Each month influencers in the plant-based world are featured; musicians, artists, social entrepreneurs and athletes. You can also find nutritional advice and delicious vegan recipes in each issue.

.

Howl (Hunt Saboteurs Association) – £5

No general description available. The latest issue contains articles on the HSA Committee, Getting Press, Sabbing the New Forest Buckhounds, Hunt sabs and the law part 5, Group News, Vermin Patrol and News.

.

Irish Wildlife (Wildlife Trust) – €3.75-8.75

Excellent production values, high-quality photographic images, attractive and informative articles on all aspects of Irish wildlife.

.

Outrage (Animal Aid) – £8-21 Post

Every member really does make a difference, giving us greater credibility when speaking out through the media, schools and high streets of Britain. And as a member, you will receive Outrage magazine, with ideas of how to join in the campaigning.

.

All Animals (Humane Society) – £25 for all future printed

The latest on how you’re helping us fight for all animals, as well as profiles of people on the front lines, tips for caring for your pets and protecting wildlife, heartwarming tales of rescue and rehab, actions you can take and more. Beautifully illustrated and thoroughly researched, All Animals will inspire you and keep you informed on the issues you care about.

.

.


Tri-annual

Journal of Wildlife Rehabilitation – $18

Has served as a primary reference for wildlife rehabilitators and others involved in the care and conservation of wildlife since 1977. The goals of this publication are:

1) To serve as the primary benefit to IWRC Members by providing reliable, relevant and useful information for wildlife rehabilitators and others involved in the care, treatment and conservation of wildlife.

2) To act as a bridge publication between the wildlife rehabilitation field and the broader scientific community in order to promote the professionalism and credibility of wildlife rehabilitation.

.

.


Bi-annual

Raptor Release

In addition to articles about The Raptor Center’s teaching, research, and service activities, the magazine contains regular features including news from The Raptor Center and upcoming events.

.

Animal Liberation – $20

Jam-packed with interesting articles, reviews, recipes, and more.

.

.


Irregular

Between the Species

A peer-reviewed electronic journal devoted to the philosophical examination of the relationship between human beings and other animals. While most articles are ethical inquiries, others raise issues involving metaphysics, epistemology and other areas of philosophical investigation. Between the Species is an open access journal: users have the right to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles.

.

.


Archive

Barefoot Vegan – $2 for all past digital

The digital version of Barefoot Vegan Magazine was published between 2015 – 2017. Focusing on all things veganism, it also included content on spirituality, community building, social justice, and sustainable living. Featuring interviews with people such as Colleen Patrick Goudreau, Kip Anderson, Shaun Monson, Tracye McQuirter, Robert Grillo, Brenda Sanders, James Aspey and many more!

.

Animal People

A newspaper that reported current events related to animal protection around the world. In 2014 the newspaper was retired, and the organization’s resources pooled into development of a new, online project that would better serve the needs of the humane cause in the 21st century. Today, Animal People continues to fulfill its longstanding educational mission through the Animal People Forum, a global platform where people from all backgrounds can submit content, network, and discuss and debate issues and perspectives relevant to the animal protection movement.

.

SATYA

Vegetarianism, environmentalism, animal advocacy and social justice.

.

.

Top 25 Animal Liberation Content Creators

This is a medium length run down of all the different animal liberation content creators. It’s still a work in progress as I want to give each creator one line descriptions, also thumbnails won’t always be 1:1 as I switch some out over time.

For more categories like campaigns, events & forums, resources and other art & media see the sidebar to the right –>

For longer pages with fleshed out descriptions of each creator or example content see top 25 animal liberation:

For a shorter page of just the names sorted by sorted by number of views and followers see campaign media analytics.

.

.


Video Essays

Campaigning

How To Activism

The Cranky Vegan – Advice on building pressure campaigns.

Keith McHenry – Co-founder of Food Not Bombs.

Hunt Saboteurs – Showing the worst aspects of speciesism to get everyone on board with the first steps to a vegan world in getting rid of blood sports.

Animal Liberation Media – Direct action as a confidence & connection building experience.

Animal Equality

Wildwood Trust

.

Online Advocacy

So You’re Dating A Vegan?

Beyond Carnism

Terra Mater

.

News

Vegan Gaze – Live-stream conversations, community news, comedy and critique.

.

Ethics

VeganKanal

Sisyphus Redeemed

CosmicSkeptic

.

Anarchist/Socialist

Catherine Klein

Mexie – Educational advocacy, plus socialist and social justice advocacy tips.

Anarchopac

Kathrin

Earthling Liberation Kollective

just wondering…

.

Social Justice

Antastesia – Social justice advocacy, literary and cultural critique, travel and cooking.

Rehana Sara – Personal advocacy tips, video advocacy and zero waste.

.

Freeganism

Freakin Frugal

.

Ecology

Animal Educate

Chris Packham

Kristina Lynn

.

.


Podcasts

General

The Vegan Option

Defender Radio

Our Hen House

Knowing Animals

The Disclosure Podcast

Animalogy

The Vegan View

Vocal Animal

.

Anarchist/Socialist

Animal Voices

Scum Remover

The Bearded Vegans

The Vegan Vanguard (Mexie & a privileged vegan)

Vegan Warrior Princess Attack

Which Side

The Solecast

.

Social Justice

Animal Rights Zone

Go Vegan Radio

.

Legal

Paw & Order

The Animal Law Podcast

.

DIY

Bluegrass Bios by Lexington Community Radio

Up Close with Chris Tinney

Sustainability World Radio

.

Environmental

Ashes Ashes

Srsly Wrong

Sustainababble

New Books Network

.

.


Online Essays

General

The Revetarian (original posts and round ups from web on animal liberation/rights)

The Sistah vegan project

The Animalist

Zoomorphic – writing in Celebration and Defence of Wild Animals

Animals and Us – Psychology Today (Hal Herzog’s blog)

.

News

Plant Based News

Animal Liberation Currents

.

Anarchist/Socialist

Species and Class – Exploring the Human-Animal relationship from Socialist and Anarchist Perspectives

Critical Animal

Earth Liberation Kollective

Sociolinguini

Not Too Human

Birds Before the Storm

Daniel McGowan | Prison Legal News

.

Feminist

Vegan Feminist Network

Striving with Systems

Collectively Free

D the Vegan Feminist

.

Law

Animal Blawg

.

Growing/Foraging

Fergus The Forager

.

Organizations

Hunt Saboteurs Association

Critical Animal Studies

Sydney Environment Institute – a general environmental blog but one with many animal related posts.  Can also navigate to Human-Animal Research Network from this page.

Vine Sanctuary

Animal Studies Repository – Humane Society US

World Animal Net – to “improve communication and coordination among the world’s animal protection groups”.

.

History

The Vegan Option

Zooscope: The Animals in Film Archive

.

.

.


Zines & Books

Journals

Earth First!

The Land

.

Zinesters

Earthling Liberation Kollective

Julie Nowak

Steve Larder

Dysophia

.

Rewilding

George Monbiot

Marc Bekoff

Ron Broglio

Tim Flannery

William Adams

.

Anarchist Socialist

Aragorn Eloff

Douglas K. Candland

Bob Torres

Keith McHenry

.

Feminist

Carol J. Adams

Aph Ko and Syl Ko

Breeze Harper

Pattrice Jones

.

Philosophy

Cora Diamond – Intuitionist/Authenticity approach,

Martha C. Nussbaum – Capabilities/Virtue approach,

Christine M. Korsgaard – Deontological rights approach,

Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka – Sovereign/citizen rights approach,

John Hadley – Autonomy approach,

Stephen Wise – Property rights approach,

.

.

My Top 25 Animal Liberation Video Channels

.

Community

theflemface

.

LayVegan

.

à-bas-le-ciel

.

Rehana Jomeen, Rehana Sara

.

Chris Hines

.

Dombowerphoto, dombower

.

.

Anarchist/Socialist

Antastesia

.

Mexie

.

a privileged vegan

.

anarchopac

.

LTFisch

.

.

Reg Flowers

.

veggieworld

.

.

Technology

So You’re Dating A Vegan

.

Unnatural Vegan

.

ModVegan

.

.

Ethics

Indy

.

SisyphusRedeemed

.

Qwerky Science

.

.

Wildlife

Chris Packham

.

Vegan Below Zero

.

Jae Costly

.

.

Organizations

Bite Size Vegan

.

Beyond Carnism

.

Palestinian Animal League

.

.

My Top 25 Animal Liberation Podcasts

.

General

The Vegan Optionitem image #1

.

Defender Radioitem image #12

.

The Species Barrieritem image #20

.

The Disclosure Podcast (Earthling Ed)Image result for The Disclosure Podcast (Earthling Ed)

.

Animalogy (Coleen Patrick-Goudreau)item image #21

.

The Vegan Societyitem image #23

.

.

Anarchist/Socialist

Animal Voicesitem image #24

.

Scum Removeritem image #25

.

The Bearded Vegansitem image #2

.

The Vegan Vanguard (Mexie & a privileged vegan)item image #26

.

Vegan Warrior Princess Attackitem image #3

.

Which Sideitem image #4

.

The Solecastitem image #5

.

.

Social Justice

Animal Rights Zoneitem image #7

.

Go Vegan Radioitem image #6

.

Legal

Paw & Orderitem image #8

.

The Animal Law Podcastitem image #9

.

Troubadours and Raconteursitem image #10

.

.

DIY

Bluegrass Bios by Lexington Community Radioitem image #11

.

Up Close with Chris Tinneyitem image #13

.

Sustainability World Radioitem image #14

.

Environmental

Ashes Ashesitem image #15

.

Greening the Apocalypseitem image #16

.

Srsly Wrongitem image #17

.

Sustainababbleitem image #18

.

New Books Networkitem image #19

.

.

 

Top 25 Animal Liberation News Sites & Blogs

General

Barefoot Veganitem image #1

.

Vine Sanctuaryitem image #12

.

The Animalistitem image #20

.

.

Anarchist/Socialist

Earth Liberation Kollectiveitem image #21

.

Weaving Legendsitem image #22

.

Sociolinguiniitem image #23

.
Not Too Humanitem image #19

.

The Duck Shootitem image #24

.

Birds Before the Stormitem image #25

.

Dare To Dreamitem image #2

.

Cut Waste Not Treesitem image #3

.

Food in Cultureitem image #4

.

Crows Head Soupitem image #5

.

.

Feminist

Striving with Systemsitem image #10

.

Collectively Freeitem image #11

.

D the Vegan Feministitem image #13

.

.

Growing/Foraging

Fergus The Forageritem image #6

.

.

Organizations

Unoffensive Animalitem image #7

.

Animal Action of Greater Reading, PAitem image #8

.

Our Hen Houseitem image #9

.

.

History

Aberdeen Campaign Historyitem image #26

.

Incorporates video

Mod Veganitem image #14

.

The Bruges Vegan https://ia601403.us.archive.org/27/items/Top25AnimalLiberationNewsSitesBlogs/23.jpg

.

à bas le cielitem image #17

.

Activist Journeysitem image #18

.

My Top 25 Animal Liberation Books

Feral: Rewilding the Land, Sea and Human Life by George Monbiot

How many of us sometimes feel that we are scratching at the walls of this life, seeking to find our way into a wider space beyond? That our mild, polite existence sometimes seems to crush the breath out of us? Feral is the lyrical and gripping story of George Monbiot’s efforts to re-engage with nature and discover a new way of living.

He shows how, by restoring and rewilding our damaged ecosystems on land and at sea, we can bring wonder back into our lives. Making use of some remarkable scientific discoveries, Feral lays out a new, positive environmentalism, in which nature is allowed to find its own way.

The Emotional Lives of Animals: A Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy, Sorrow, and Empathy and Why They Matter by Marc Bekoff

Based on award-winning scientist Marc Bekoff’s years studying social communication in a wide range of species, this important book shows that animals have rich emotional lives.

Bekoff skillfully blends extraordinary stories of animal joy, empathy, grief, embarrassment, anger, and love with the latest scientific research confirming the existence of emotions that common sense and experience have long implied. Filled with Bekoff’s light humor and touching stories, The Emotional Lives of Animals is a clarion call for reassessing both how we view animals and how we treat them.

Beasts of Burden: Biopolitics, Labor, and Animal Life in British Romanticism by Ron Broglio

In Beasts of Burden, Ron Broglio examines how lives—human and animal—were counted in rural England and Scotland during the Romantic period. During this time, Britain experienced unprecedented data collection from censuses, ordinance surveys, and measurements of resources, all used to quantify the life and productivity of the nation.

It was the dawn of biopolitics—the age in which biological life and its abilities became regulated by the state. Borne primarily by workers and livestock, nowhere was this regulation felt more powerfully than in the fields, commons, and enclosures.

Using literature, art, and cultural texts of the period, Broglio explores the apparatus of biopolitics during the age of Adam Smith and Thomas Malthus. He looks at how data collection turned everyday life into citizenship and nationalism and how labor class poets and artists recorded and resisted the burden of this new biopolitical life.

The author reveals how the frictions of material life work over and against designs by the state to form a unified biopolitical Britain. At its most radical, this book changes what constitutes the central concerns of the Romantic period and which texts are valuable for understanding the formation of a nation, its agriculture, and its rural landscapes.

Europe: A Natural History by Tim Flannery

In this unprecedented evolutionary history, Tim Flannery shows how for the past 100 million years Europe has absorbed wave after wave of immigrant species; taking them in, transforming them, and sometimes hybridising them.

Flannery reveals how, in addition to playing a vital role in the evolution of our own species, Europe was once the site of the formation of the first coral reefs, the home of some of the world’s largest elephants, and now has more wolves than North America.

This groundbreaking book charts the history of the land itself and the forces shaping life on it – including modern humans – to create a portrait of a continent that continues to exert a huge influence on the world today.

Decolonizing Nature by William M Adams & Martin Mulligan

British imperialism was almost unparalleled in its historical and geographical reach, leaving a legacy of entrenched social transformation in nations and cultures in every part of the globe.

Colonial annexation and government were based on an all-encompassing system that integrated and controlled political, economic, social and ethnic relations, and required a similar annexation and control of natural resources and nature itself. Colonial ideologies were expressed not only in the progressive exploitation of nature but also in the emerging discourses of conservation.

At the start of the 21st century, the conservation of nature is of undiminished importance in post-colonial societies, yet the legacy of colonial thinking endures. What should conservation look like today, and what (indeed, whose) ideas should it be based upon?

Decolonizing Nature explores the influence of the colonial legacy on contemporary conservation and on ideas about the relationships between people, polities and nature in countries and cultures that were once part of the British Empire. It locates the historical development of the theory and practice of conservation – at both the periphery and the centre – firmly within the context of this legacy, and considers its significance today. It highlights the present and future challenges to conservationists of contemporary global neo-colonialism.

The contributors to this volume include both academics and conservation practitioners. They provide wide-ranging and insightful perspectives on the need for, and practical ways to achieve new forms of informed ethical engagement between people and nature.

Hungry for Peace: How You Can Help End Poverty and War with Food Not Bombs by Keith Mchenry

The de facto how-to manual of the international Food Not Bombs movement, which provides free food to the homeless and hungry and has branches in countries on every continent except Antarctica, this book describes at length how to set up and operate a Food Not Bombs chapter. The guide considers every aspect of the operation, from food collection and distribution to fund-raising, consensus decision making, and what to do when the police arrive.

It contains detailed information on setting up a kitchen and cooking for large groups as well as a variety of delicious recipes. Accompanying numerous photographs is a lengthy section on the history of Food Not Bombs, with stories of the jailing and murder of activists, as well as premade handbills and flyers ready for photocopying.

Complete Urban Farmer: Growing Your Own Fruit and Vegetables in Town by David Wickers

A nice and basic overview for the new urban gardener. If you are starting from ground zero this is a good book to read to get the very basics of indoor and outdoor gardening. It helped me to get excited about starting my own little plot.

The Good Life: Helen and Scott Nearing’s Sixty Years of Self-Sufficient Living by Helen Nearing and Scott Nearing

This one volume edition of Living the Good Life and Continuing the Good Life brings these classics on rural homesteading together. This couple abandoned the city for a rural life with minimal cash and the knowledge of self reliance and good health.

Creating a Flower Meadow by Yvette Verner

Inspired by the idea of doing something positive for their local environment, Yvette Verner and her husband Mike bought a small field close to their home in the south of England. With the bountiful assistance of nature they have created a flower meadow which attracts a rich variety of wildlife, including badgers, deer and a multitude of birds and butterflies.

In this book Yvette tells the story of their meadow: how they designed the layout, selected and planted wild flowers, trees and hedgesand spent many absorbing hours wildlife-watching. Meadows such as theirs support large populations of plants, insects, birds and other animals, and are extremely important in maintaining the ecological diversity of our countryside. Many meadow species that farmers and gardeners consider to be weeds are host to other forms of wildlife: the modest oxeye daisy alone supports over twenty species of insect!

Earth Repair: A Grassroots Guide to Healing Toxic and Damaged Landscapes by Leila Darwish

Millions of acres of land have been contaminated by pesticides, improperly handled chemicals, dirty energy projects, toxic waste, and other pollutants in the United States alone. This toxic legacy impacts the environment, our health, our watersheds, and land that could otherwise be used to grow healthy local food and medicines.

Conventional clean-up techniques employed by government and industry are tremendously expensive and resource-intensive and can cause further damage. More and more communities find themselves increasingly unable to rely on those companies and governments who created the problems to step in and provide solutions.

Anarchism and Animal Liberation; Essays on Complementary Elements of Total Liberation by Anthony J. Nocella II, Richard J. White & Erika Cudworth

Building upon anarchist critiques of racism, sexism, ableism and classism, this collection of new essays melds anarchism with animal advocacy in arguing that speciesism is an ideological and social norm rooted in hierarchy and inequality.

This book brings together international scholars and activists from the fields of anarchist and critical animal studies. The contributors challenge activists and academics to look more critically into the causes of speciesism and to take a broader view of peace, social justice and the nature of oppression

Animal advocates have long argued that speciesism will end if the humanity adopts a vegan ethic. This concept is developed into the argument that the vegan ethic promises the most change if it is also anti-capitalist and against all forms of domination.

It’s Just a Feeling: The Philosophy of Desirism by Joel Marks

Written in an engaging style for the general reader, It’s Just a Feeling addresses the fundamental question of ethics: “How shall I live?” The answer it offers is: “In accordance with my considered desires.” This is the philosophy of desirism. The book distinguishes desirism from morality on the one hand and from self-centeredness on the other. Numerous examples drawn from everyday life illustrate desirism in both theory and practice.

Feral Children and Clever Animals Reflections on Human Nature by Douglas K. Candland

Our common way of thinking about the difference between physical and behavioral science, is that the goal of the first is to eliminate variance, while the second accepts variance as the essential characteristic of the subject worthy of study. The physical sciences seek to eliminate variation because variation confounds accuracy of prediction.

The behavioral sciences should accept variation as the essential aspect of living beings, and thereby strive to measure variance as a technique of describing the nature of life itself. We often confuse the legitimacy of these different goals, thereby leading us to the conclusion, for example, that the physical sciences are more “scientific” than the behavioral because they strive for accuracy and prediction.

Some appear to think that a measure of the applicability of science is accuracy of prediction, but variance, too, is a legitimate interest of the scientific method. Science is a unique method, a method independent of what it studies. Measures of variance can be just as reliable as formulas that strive to eliminate or reduce variance. As always, the meaningful issue is what one wants to know, what one wants to accomplish through the application of the methods of science.

Let us put to rest the notion that there can be no science of living beings or that scientific procedures somehow diminish and degrade the awesomeness of life. The chief characteristic of life forms, as opposed to physical objects, is variation. It is variation that permits evolution, for without variation, there is nothing for natural selection to select. The study of variation may be done in two ways: by study of the unique or by study of the general.

In this book, we have examined examples of both, although study of the unique case dominates, to be sure; but what Thorndike, Haggerty, and Hamilton contributed is the importance of general variation. Both ways must be investigated because we cannot know what is unique without knowing what is general. Behavioral science, therefore, proceeds on two fronts: the study of the unusual and the study of the variation characteristic of groups.

Making a Killing: The Political Economy of Animal Rights by Bob Torres

The Sexual Politics of Meat is Carol Adams inspiring and controversial exploration of the interplay between contemporary society’s ingrained cultural misogyny and its obsession with meat and masculinity. First published in 1990, the book has continued to change the lives of tens of thousands of readers into the second decade of the 21st century.

The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory by Carol J. Adams

The Sexual Politics of Meat is Carol Adams inspiring and controversial exploration of the interplay between contemporary society s ingrained cultural misogyny and its obsession with meat and masculinity. First published in 1990, the book has continued to change the lives of tens of thousands of readers into the second decade of the 21st century.

Aphro-Ism: Essays on Pop Culture, Feminism, and Black Veganism from Two Sisters by Aph Ko and Syl Ko

In this lively, accessible, and provocative collection, Aph and Syl Ko provide new theoretical frameworks on race, advocacy for nonhuman animals, and feminism. Using popular culture as a point of reference for their critiques, the Ko sisters engage in groundbreaking analysis of the compartmentalized nature of contemporary social movements, present new ways of understanding interconnected oppressions, and offer conceptual ways of moving forward expressive of Afrofuturism and black veganism.

Sistah Vegan: Black Female Vegans Speak on Food, Identity, Health, and Society by A. Breeze Harper

Sistah Vegan is a series of narratives, critical essays, poems, and reflections from a diverse community of North American black-identified vegans. Collectively, these activists are de-colonizing their bodies and minds via whole-foods veganism. By kicking junk-food habits, the more than thirty contributors all show the way toward longer, stronger, and healthier lives.

Suffering from type-2 diabetes, hypertension, high blood pressure, and overweight need not be the way women of color are doomed to be victimized and live out their mature lives. There are healthy alternatives.

Thought-provoking for the identification and dismantling of environmental racism, ecological devastation, and other social injustices, Sistah Vegan is an in-your-face handbook for our time. It calls upon all of us to make radical changes for the betterment of ourselves, our planet, and–by extension–everyone.

Sistah Vegan is not about preaching veganism or vegan fundamentalism. Rather, the book is about how a group of black-identified female vegans perceive nutrition, food, ecological sustainability, health and healing, animal rights, parenting, social justice, spirituality, hair care, race, gender-identification, womanism, and liberation that all go against the (refined and bleached) grain of our dysfunctional society.

Oxen At The Intersection: A Collision by Pattrice Jones

When Green Mountain College in Poultney, Vermont announced that two oxen called Bill and Lou would be killed and turned into hamburgers despite their years of service as unofficial college and town mascots, Pattrice Jones and her colleagues at nearby VINE Sanctuary offered an alternative scenario: to allow the elderly bovines to retire to the sanctuary.

What transpired after this simple offer was a catastrophe of miscommunication, misdirection and misinterpretations, as the college dug in its heels, activists piled in and social media erupted.

Part true-crime mystery, part on-the-ground reportage and part socio-cultural critique, this a brilliant unearthing of the assumptions, preconceptions and biases that led all concerned with the lives and deaths of these two animals to fail to achieve their ends.

How and why the threads of this story unravelled, as Jones reveals, raises profound questions – most particularly about how ideas rooted in history, race, gender, region and speciesism intersect and complicated strategy and activism and their desired outcomes. In the end, notes Jones, we must always ask, Where’s the body?

A Rational Approach to Animal Rights: Extensions in Abolitionist Theory by Corey Wrenn

Applying critical sociological theory, this book explores the shortcomings of popular tactics in animal liberation efforts. Building a case for a scientifically-grounded grassroots approach, it is argued that professionalized advocacy that works in the service of theistic, capitalist, patriarchal institutions will find difficulty achieving success.

Philosophy and Animal Life by Stanley Cavell & Cora Diamond

Philosophy and Animal Life offers a new way of thinking about animal rights, our obligation to animals, and the nature of philosophy itself. Cora Diamond begins with “The Difficulty of Reality and the Difficulty of Philosophy,” in which she accuses analytical philosophy of evading, or deflecting, the responsibility of human beings toward nonhuman animals.

Diamond then explores the animal question as it is bound up with the more general problem of philosophical skepticism. Focusing specifically on J. M. Coetzee’s The Lives of Animals, she considers the failure of language to capture the vulnerability of humans and animals. Stanley Cavell responds to Diamond’s argument with his own close reading of Coetzee’s work, connecting the human-animal relation to further themes of morality and philosophy.

John McDowell follows with a critique of both Diamond and Cavell, and Ian Hacking explains why Cora Diamond’s essay is so deeply perturbing and, paradoxically for a philosopher, he favors poetry over philosophy as a way of overcoming some of her difficulties.

Cary Wolfe’s introduction situates these arguments within the broader context of contemporary continental philosophy and theory, particularly Jacques Derrida’s work on deconstruction and the question of the animal.

Philosophy and Animal Life is a crucial collection for those interested in animal rights, ethics, and the development of philosophical inquiry. It also offers a unique exploration of the role of ethics in Coetzee’s fiction.

Fellow Creatures: Our Obligations to the Other Animals by Christine M. Korsgaard

Christine M. Korsgaard presents a compelling new view of humans’ moral relationships to the other animals. She defends the claim that we are obligated to treat all sentient beings as what Kant called “ends-in-themselves”. Drawing on a theory of the good derived from Aristotle, she offers an explanation of why animals are the sorts of beings for whom things can be good or bad.

She then turns to Kant’s argument for the value of humanity to show that rationality commits us to claiming the standing of ends-in-ourselves, in two senses. Kant argued that as autonomous beings, we claim to be ends-in-ourselves when we claim the standing to make laws for ourselves and each other. Korsgaard argues that as beings who have a good, we also claim to be ends-in-ourselves when we take the things that are good for us to be good absolutely and so worthy of pursuit. The first claim commits us to joining with other autonomous beings in relations of moral reciprocity. The second claim commits us to treating the good of every sentient creature as something of absolute importance.

Korsgaard argues that human beings are not more important than the other animals, that our moral nature does not make us superior to the other animals, and that our unique capacities do not make us better off than the other animals. She criticizes the “marginal cases” argument and advances a new view of moral standing as attaching to the atemporal subjects of lives. She criticizes Kant’s own view that our duties to animals are indirect, and offers a non-utilitarian account of the relation between pleasure and the good. She also addresses a number of directly practical questions: whether we have the right to eat animals, experiment on them, make them work for us and fight in our wars, and keep them as pets; and how to understand the wrong that we do when we cause a species to go extinct.

Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights by Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka

Zoopolis offers a new agenda for the theory and practice of animal rights. Most animal rights theory focuses on the intrinsic capacities or interests of animals, and the moral status and moral rights that these intrinsic characteristics give rise to.

Zoopolis shifts the debate from the realm of moral theory and applied ethics to the realm of political theory, focusing on the relational obligations that arise from the varied ways that animals relate to human societies and institutions. Building on recent developments in the political theory of group-differentiated citizenship, Zoopolis introduces us to the genuine “political animal”. It argues that different types of animals stand in different relationships to human political communities.

Domesticated animals should be seen as full members of human-animal mixed communities, participating in the cooperative project of shared citizenship. Wild animals, by contrast, form their own sovereign communities entitled to protection against colonization, invasion, domination and other threats to self-determination.

`Liminal’ animals who are wild but live in the midst of human settlement (such as crows or raccoons) should be seen as “denizens”, resident of our societies, but not fully included in rights and responsibilities of citizenship. To all of these animals we owe respect for their basic inviolable rights. But we inevitably and appropriately have very different relations with them, with different types of obligations. Humans and animals are inextricably bound in a complex web of relationships, and Zoopolis offers an original and profoundly affirmative vision of how to ground this complex web of relations on principles of justice and compassion.

Animal Property Rights: A Theory of Habitat Rights for Wild Animals by John Hadley

Animal Property Rights: A Theory of Habitat Rights for Wild Animals represents the first attempt to extend liberal property rights theory across the species barrier to animals. It broadens the traditional focus of animal rights beyond basic rights to life.

Rattling The Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals by Stephen Wise

Rattling the Cage explains how the failure to recognize the basic legal rights of chimpanzees and bonobos in light of modern scientific findings creates a glaring contradiction in our law. In this witty, moving, persuasive, and impeccably researched argument, Wise demonstrates that the cognitive, emotional, and social capacities of these apes entitle them to freedom from imprisonment and abuse.

Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions by Cass R. Sunstein and Martha C. Nussbaum

Cass Sunstein and Martha Nussbaum bring together an all-star cast of contributors to explore the legal and political issues that underlie the campaign for animal rights and the opposition to it.

Addressing ethical questions about ownership, protection against unjustified suffering, and the ability of animals to make their own choices free from human control, the authors offer numerous different perspectives on animal rights and animal welfare. They show that whatever one’s ultimate conclusions, the relationship between human beings and nonhuman animals is being fundamentally rethought. This book offers a state-of-the-art treatment of that rethinking.

Top 25 Animal Liberation Best Selling Books

Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer

The single most original book about food written this century. It will change the way you think and change the way you eat. For good.

Whether you’re doing veganuary, trying to cut back on animal consumption, or a lifelong meat-eater, you need to read this book.

Fellow Creatures: Our Obligations to the Other Animals by Christine M. Korsgaard

Christine M. Korsgaard presents a compelling new view of humans’ moral relationships to the other animals. She defends the claim that we are obligated to treat all sentient beings as what Kant called “ends-in-themselves”. Drawing on a theory of the good derived from Aristotle, she offers an explanation of why animals are the sorts of beings for whom things can be good or bad.

She then turns to Kant’s argument for the value of humanity to show that rationality commits us to claiming the standing of ends-in-ourselves, in two senses. Kant argued that as autonomous beings, we claim to be ends-in-ourselves when we claim the standing to make laws for ourselves and each other. Korsgaard argues that as beings who have a good, we also claim to be ends-in-ourselves when we take the things that are good for us to be good absolutely and so worthy of pursuit. The first claim commits us to joining with other autonomous beings in relations of moral reciprocity. The second claim commits us to treating the good of every sentient creature as something of absolute importance.

Korsgaard argues that human beings are not more important than the other animals, that our moral nature does not make us superior to the other animals, and that our unique capacities do not make us better off than the other animals. She criticizes the “marginal cases” argument and advances a new view of moral standing as attaching to the atemporal subjects of lives. She criticizes Kant’s own view that our duties to animals are indirect, and offers a non-utilitarian account of the relation between pleasure and the good. She also addresses a number of directly practical questions: whether we have the right to eat animals, experiment on them, make them work for us and fight in our wars, and keep them as pets; and how to understand the wrong that we do when we cause a species to go extinct.

Peter Singer

Animal Liberation – How should we treat non-human animals? In this immensely powerful and influential book, the renowned moral philosopher Peter Singer addresses this simple question with trenchant, dispassionate reasoning. Accompanied by the disturbing evidence of factory farms and laboratories, his answers triggered the birth of the animal rights movement.

The Ethics of What We Eat explores the impact our food choices have on humans, animals, and the environment. Recognizing that not all of us will become vegetarians, Singer and Mason offer ways to make healthful, humane food choices. As they point out: You can be ethical without being fanatical.

Marc Bekoff

The Emotional Lives of Animals: A Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy, Sorrow, and Empathy ― and Why They Matter – Based on award-winning scientist Marc Bekoff’s years studying social communication in a wide range of species, this important book shows that animals have rich emotional lives.

Bekoff skillfully blends extraordinary stories of animal joy, empathy, grief, embarrassment, anger, and love with the latest scientific research confirming the existence of emotions that common sense and experience have long implied. Filled with Bekoff’s light humor and touching stories, The Emotional Lives of Animals is a clarion call for reassessing both how we view animals and how we treat them.

Animals Matter: A Biologist Explains Why We Should Treat Animals with Compassion and Respect – Nonhuman animals have many of the same feelings we do. They get hurt, they suffer, they are happy, and they take care of each other. Marc Bekoff, a renowned biologist specializing in animal minds and emotions, guides readers from high school age up—including older adults who want a basic introduction to the topic—in looking at scientific research, philosophical ideas, and humane values that argue for the ethical and compassionate treatment of animals.

Citing the latest scientific studies and tackling controversies with conviction, he zeroes in on the important questions, inviting reader participation with “thought experiments” and ideas for action.

Melanie Joy

Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: And Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism – Melanie Joy explores the invisible system that shapes our perception of the meat we eat, so that we love some animals and eat others without knowing why. She calls this system carnism.

Carnism is the belief system, or ideology, that allows us to selectively choose which animals become our meat, and it is sustained by complex psychological and social mechanisms. Like other “isms” (racism, ageism, etc.), carnism is most harmful when it is unrecognized and unacknowledged. This book names and explains this phenomenon and offers it up for examination. Unlike the many books that explain why we shouldn’t eat meat, Joy’s book explains why we do eat meat – and thus how we can make more informed choices as citizens and consumers.

Beyond Beliefs: A Guide to Improving Relationships and Communication for Vegans, Vegetarians, and Meat Eaters – Vegans, vegetarians, and meat eaters can feel like they’re living in different worlds. Many vegans and vegetarians struggle to feel understood and respected in a meat-eating culture, where some of their most pressing concerns and cherished beliefs are invisible, and where they are often met with defensiveness when they try to talk about the issue.

They can become frustrated and struggle to feel connected with meat eaters. And meat eaters can feel disconnected from vegans and vegetarians whose beliefs they don’t fully understand and whose frustration may spill over into their interactions. The good news is that relationship and communication breakdown among vegans, vegetarians, and meat eaters is not inevitable, and it is reversible. With the right tools, healthy connections can be cultivated, repaired, and even strengthened.

Veganism in an Oppressive World: A Vegans-of-Color Community Project by Julia Feliz Brueck

What would it take for veganism to spread further than ever before?

Through the voices of vegans of color, Veganism in an Oppressive World will revolutionize the way you see our movement.

A must read for new vegans and seasoned nonhuman animal activists alike, this community-led effort provides in-depth, first-hand accounts and analyses of what is needed to broaden the scope of veganism beyond its current status as a fringe or “single-issue” movement while ensuring that justice for nonhumans remains its central focus.

This collection of academic essays, personal reflections and poetry critically examines the state of the mainstream nonhuman animal rights movement while imparting crucial perspectives on how to build a movement that is inclusive, consistent, and effective.

The Joyful Vegan: Staying Vegan in a World That Wants You to Eat Meat, Dairy, and Eggs by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau

Insights into why some people stay vegan and others don’t. Understanding that the food is the easy part of being vegan, Colleen turns her attention to what she believes is the most challenging—dealing with the social, cultural, and emotional aspects: being asked to defend your eating choices, living with the awareness of animal suffering, feeling the pressure (often self-inflicted) to be perfect, and experiencing guilt, remorse, and anger.

In these pages, Colleen shares her wisdom for navigating and overcoming these challenges and arms readers with solutions and strategies for staying confident with family and friends, creating healthy relationships, communicating effectively, sharing enthusiasm without evangelizing, finding like-minded community, and experiencing peace of mind as a vegan in a non-vegan world.

Fingers in the Sparkle Jar: A Memoir by Chris Packham

An introverted, unusual young boy, isolated by his obsessions and a loner at school, Chris Packham only felt at ease in the fields and woods around his suburban home. But when he stole a young Kestrel from its nest, he was about to embark on a friendship that would teach him what it meant to love, and that would change him forever. In his rich, lyrical and emotionally exposing memoir, Chris brings to life his childhood in the 70s, from his bedroom bursting with fox skulls, birds’ eggs and sweaty jam jars, to his feral adventures. But pervading his story is the search for freedom, meaning and acceptance in a world that didn’t understand him.

Beautifully wrought, this coming-of-age memoir will be unlike any you’ve ever read.

How To Go Vegan: The why, the how, and everything you need to make going vegan easy by Veganuary

Whether you’re already a full-time vegan, considering making the switch or know someone who is, this book will give you all the tools you need to make the change towards a healthier, happier and more ethical lifestyle.

Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights by Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka

Zoopolis offers a new agenda for the theory and practice of animal rights. Most animal rights theory focuses on the intrinsic capacities or interests of animals, and the moral status and moral rights that these intrinsic characteristics give rise to.

Zoopolis shifts the debate from the realm of moral theory and applied ethics to the realm of political theory, focusing on the relational obligations that arise from the varied ways that animals relate to human societies and institutions. Building on recent developments in the political theory of group-differentiated citizenship, Zoopolis introduces us to the genuine “political animal”. It argues that different types of animals stand in different relationships to human political communities.

Domesticated animals should be seen as full members of human-animal mixed communities, participating in the cooperative project of shared citizenship. Wild animals, by contrast, form their own sovereign communities entitled to protection against colonization, invasion, domination and other threats to self-determination.

`Liminal’ animals who are wild but live in the midst of human settlement (such as crows or raccoons) should be seen as “denizens”, resident of our societies, but not fully included in rights and responsibilities of citizenship. To all of these animals we owe respect for their basic inviolable rights. But we inevitably and appropriately have very different relations with them, with different types of obligations. Humans and animals are inextricably bound in a complex web of relationships, and Zoopolis offers an original and profoundly affirmative vision of how to ground this complex web of relations on principles of justice and compassion.

Eat Like You Care: An Examination of the Morality of Eating Animals by Gary Francione & Anna Charlton

This 138 page book on the morality of eating animals is set out into three sections. Firstly: an introduction and a simple examination of human nature when it comes to ethical issues surrounding the debate on eating animals. This is titled ‘We’re all Michael Vick: Our moral schizophrenia’. It examines why the public was so outraged when Vick was found out to not only be involved in dog fighting, but the ring leader.

He was in charge of raising dogs, training them to fight and also putting them down when they were too damaged to carry on, or if they were inferior. This resulted in a public defamation of him based on the moral argument that the suffering of animals cannot be justified by profit or pleasure. Francione and Charlton use this same line of argument to include the eating of animals: consumption for pleasure, or as they call it ‘palate pleasure’. They move on from this to give a general view of what Veganism entails, from arguments against, to conversations with friends and family.

They then move onto to section two which is titled ‘”but”: The excuses we use and why they don’t work’. This section spreads over 85 pages and is the main meat (pun intended) of the book. It goes into details of what the common refutations to Veganism are. Including questions about protein, iron, calcium and calorie intake. Becoming ill from not eating animal products. The naturalistic argument and the argument of human superiority over animals via God’s authority. The famous desert island argument. Tradition and if fish feel pain. Personal choice and being the apex predator. And why these attempts at refuting the claim that not using animal products is okay, don’t work.

The last section is a conclusion on all the previous sections, concluding (not surprisingly) that Veganism is morally superior and is part of our duty on this planet to bring to a greater popularity. This book is useful for anyone curious about the facts concerning a change of diet from animal products to a Vegan diet, or for Vegetarians wanting to go that step further. In general the arguments are sound and logically follow. Although that doesn’t change the fact that most arguments for and against Veganism are emotionally based. However, it is refreshing to read a book on such a sensitive subject that doesn’t take an emotive stance which anyone who doesn’t already agree with the authors would find repulsive, and quite frankly: unreadable.

The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory by Carol J. Adams

The Sexual Politics of Meat is Carol Adams inspiring and controversial exploration of the interplay between contemporary society s ingrained cultural misogyny and its obsession with meat and masculinity. First published in 1990, the book has continued to change the lives of tens of thousands of readers into the second decade of the 21st century.

Defining Critical Animal Studies: An Intersectional Social Justice Approach for Liberation By Anthony J. Nocella II

This is the first book to define the philosophical and practical parameters of critical animal studies (CAS). Rooted in anarchist perspectives that oppose all systems of domination and authoritarianism, CAS both challenges anthropocentrism and presents animal liberation as a social justice movement that intersects with other movements for positive change.

Written by a collection of internationally respected scholar-activists, each chapter expands upon the theory and practice underlying the total liberation approach, the roles of academics and activists, and the ten principles of CAS. With apolitical animal studies and exploitative animal research dominating higher education, this book offers a timely counter-narrative that demands the liberation of all oppressed beings and the environment. Defining Critical Animal Studies will interest educators, students, activists, community members, and policy makers seeking accessible theory that can be put into action.

Sistah Vegan: Black Female Vegans Speak on Food, Identity, Health, and Society by A. Breeze Harper

Sistah Vegan is a series of narratives, critical essays, poems, and reflections from a diverse community of North American black-identified vegans. Collectively, these activists are de-colonizing their bodies and minds via whole-foods veganism. By kicking junk-food habits, the more than thirty contributors all show the way toward longer, stronger, and healthier lives.

Suffering from type-2 diabetes, hypertension, high blood pressure, and overweight need not be the way women of color are doomed to be victimized and live out their mature lives. There are healthy alternatives.

Thought-provoking for the identification and dismantling of environmental racism, ecological devastation, and other social injustices, Sistah Vegan is an in-your-face handbook for our time. It calls upon all of us to make radical changes for the betterment of ourselves, our planet, and–by extension–everyone.

Sistah Vegan is not about preaching veganism or vegan fundamentalism. Rather, the book is about how a group of black-identified female vegans perceive nutrition, food, ecological sustainability, health and healing, animal rights, parenting, social justice, spirituality, hair care, race, gender-identification, womanism, and liberation that all go against the (refined and bleached) grain of our dysfunctional society.

Making a Killing: The Political Economy of Animal Rights by Bob Torres

The Sexual Politics of Meat is Carol Adams inspiring and controversial exploration of the interplay between contemporary society’s ingrained cultural misogyny and its obsession with meat and masculinity. First published in 1990, the book has continued to change the lives of tens of thousands of readers into the second decade of the 21st century.

What a Fish Knows: The Inner Lives of Our Underwater Cousins by Jonathan Balcombe

Do fishes think? Do they really have three-second memories? And can they recognize the humans who peer back at them from above the surface of the water? In What a Fish Knows, the myth-busting ethologist Jonathan Balcombe addresses these questions and more, taking us under the sea, through streams and estuaries, and to the other side of the aquarium glass to reveal the surprising capabilities of fishes.

Although there are more than thirty thousand species of fish―more than all mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians combined―we rarely consider how individual fishes think, feel, and behave. Balcombe upends our assumptions about fishes, portraying them not as unfeeling, dead-eyed feeding machines but as sentient, aware, social, and even Machiavellian―in other words, much like us.

What a Fish Knows draws on the latest science to present a fresh look at these remarkable creatures in all their breathtaking diversity and beauty. Fishes conduct elaborate courtship rituals and develop lifelong bonds with shoalmates. They also plan, hunt cooperatively, use tools, curry favor, deceive one another, and punish wrongdoers. We may imagine that fishes lead simple, fleeting lives―a mode of existence that boils down to a place on the food chain, rote spawning, and lots of aimless swimming. But, as Balcombe demonstrates, the truth is far richer and more complex, worthy of the grandest social novel.

Highlighting breakthrough discoveries from fish enthusiasts and scientists around the world and pondering his own encounters with fishes, Balcombe examines the fascinating means by which fishes gain knowledge of the places they inhabit, from shallow tide pools to the deepest reaches of the ocean. Teeming with insights and exciting discoveries, What a Fish Knows offers a thoughtful appraisal of our relationships with fishes and inspires us to take a more enlightened view of the planet’s increasingly imperiled marine life. What a Fish Knowswill forever change how we see our aquatic cousins―the pet goldfish included.

The Animals Reader: The Essential Classic and Contemporary Writings by Linda Kalof & Amy Fitzgerald

The study of animals – and the relationship between humans and other animals – is now one of the most fiercely debated topics in contemporary science and culture. Animals have a long history in human society, providing food, labour, sport and companionship as well as becoming objects for exhibit.

More contemporary uses extend to animals as therapy and in scientific testing. As natural habitats continue to be destroyed, the rights of animals to co-exist on the planet – and their symbolic power as a connection between humans and the natural world – are ever more hotly contested. The Animals Reader brings together the key classic and contemporary writings from Philosophy, Ethics, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Anthropology, Environmental Studies, History, Law and Science. As the first book of its kind, The Animals Reader provides a framework for understanding the current state of the multidisciplinary field of animal studies. This anthology will be invaluable for students across the Humanities and Social Sciences as well as for general readers.

Kashrut and Jewish Food Ethics b yShmuly Yanklowitz

Since the turn of the millennium, rapid advances in technology, globalized markets, and atomized politics instigated in the American and Israeli Jewish communities questions about the morals of food consumption.

Contemporary issues such as workers’ rights, animal welfare, environmental protection, among others, intersect with basic Jewish food ethics: while Jewish communities respect ancient laws, they also appreciate the importance of progress and look forward to a more repaired world. In these pages, readers will have the unique opportunity to delve into the minds of the brightest Modern Orthodox thinkers of the current generation. The contributions by members of the progressive Orthodox Jewish association Torat Chayim are rich in detail and offer new paradigms for the practical observance of kashrut that have swirled in the ether for generations.

Every Twelve Seconds: Industrialized Slaughter and the Politics of Sight by Timothy Pachirat

This is an account of industrialized killing from a participant’s point of view. The author, political scientist Timothy Pachirat, was employed undercover for five months in a Great Plains slaughterhouse where 2,500 cattle were killed per day—one every twelve seconds.

Working in the cooler as a liver hanger, in the chutes as a cattle driver, and on the kill floor as a food-safety quality-control worker, Pachirat experienced firsthand the realities of the work of killing in modern society. He uses those experiences to explore not only the slaughter industry but also how, as a society, we facilitate violent labor and hide away that which is too repugnant to contemplate.

Through his vivid narrative and ethnographic approach, Pachirat brings to life massive, routine killing from the perspective of those who take part in it. He shows how surveillance and sequestration operate within the slaughterhouse and in its interactions with the community at large. He also considers how society is organized to distance and hide uncomfortable realities from view. With much to say about issues ranging from the sociology of violence and modern food production to animal rights and welfare, Every Twelve Seconds is an important and disturbing work.

The Secret Life of Cows by Rosamund Young

Cows are as varied as people. They can be highly intelligent or slow to understand, vain, considerate, proud, shy or inventive.

Although much of a cow’s day is spent eating, they always find time for extra-curricular activities such as babysitting, playing hide and seek, blackberry-picking or fighting a tree.

This is an affectionate record of a hitherto secret world.

Domestication Gone Wild: Politics and Practices of Multispecies Relations by Heather Anne Swanson, Marianne Elisabeth Lien & Gro B. Ween

The domestication of plants and animals is central to the familiar and now outdated story of civilization’s emergence. Intertwined with colonialism and imperial expansion, the domestication narrative has informed and justified dominant and often destructive practices.

Contending that domestication retains considerable value as an analytical tool, the contributors to Domestication Gone Wild reengage the concept by highlighting sites and forms of domestication occurring in unexpected and marginal sites, from Norwegian fjords and Philippine villages to British falconry cages and South African colonial townships. Challenging idioms of animal husbandry as human mastery and progress, the contributors push beyond the boundaries of farms, fences, and cages to explore how situated relations with animals and plants are linked to the politics of human difference—and, conversely, how politics are intertwined with plant and animal life. Ultimately, this volume promotes a novel, decolonizing concept of domestication that radically revises its Euro- and anthropocentric narrative.

The Wounded Animal: J. M. Coetzee And The Difficulty Of Reality In Literature And Philosophy by Stephen Mulhall

In 1997, the Nobel Prize-winning novelist J. M. Coetzee, invited to Princeton University to lecture on the moral status of animals, read a work of fiction about an eminent novelist, Elizabeth Costello, invited to lecture on the moral status of animals at an American college.

Coetzee’s lectures were published in 1999 as The Lives of Animals, and reappeared in 2003 as part of his novel Elizabeth Costello; and both lectures and novel have attracted the critical attention of a number of influential philosophers–including Peter Singer, Cora Diamond, Stanley Cavell, and John McDowell. In The Wounded Animal, Stephen Mulhall closely examines Coetzee’s writings about Costello, and the ways in which philosophers have responded to them, focusing in particular on their powerful presentation of both literature and philosophy as seeking, and failing, to represent reality–in part because of reality’s resistance to such projects of understanding, but also because of philosophy’s unwillingness to learn from literature how best to acknowledge that resistance. In so doing, Mulhall is led to consider the relations among reason, language, and the imagination, as well as more specific ethical issues concerning the moral status of animals, the meaning of mortality, the nature of evil, and the demands of religion. The ancient quarrel between philosophy and literature here displays undiminished vigor and renewed significance.

Lawyers from California to New York are fighting to gain legal rights for chimpanzees and killer whales, and lawmakers are ending the era of keeping these intelligent animals in captivity. In Hawaii and India, judges have recognized that endangered species ― from birds to lions ― have the legal right to exist. Around the world, more and more laws are being passed recognizing that ecosystems ― rivers, forests, mountains, and more ― have legally enforceable rights. And if nature has rights, then humans have responsibilities.

In The Rights of Nature, noted environmental lawyer David Boyd tells this remarkable story, which is, at its heart, one of humans as a species finally growing up. Read this book and your world view will be altered forever.

The Rights of Nature: A Legal Revolution That Could Save the World by David R. Boyd

Palila v Hawaii. New Zealand’s Te Urewera Act. Sierra Club v Disney. These legal phrases hardly sound like the makings of a revolution, but beyond the headlines portending environmental catastrophes, a movement of immense import has been building ― in courtrooms, legislatures, and communities across the globe. Cultures and laws are transforming to provide a powerful new approach to protecting the planet and the species with whom we share it.