- Paperback: 300 pages
- Publisher: Berg Publishers; 2Rev Ed edition (1 Feb 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1859733301
- ISBN-13: 978-1859733301
- Product Dimensions: 23.3 x 15.8 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 485,260 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
"The question is not, can they reason? Nor, can they talk? But can they suffer?" Jeremy Bentham's 1789 dictum lies at the heart of Richard D Ryder's very modern thinking. Psychologist, ethicist, historian: it is, however, a fourth dimension, his campaigning, which gets up the noses of those who embrace tradition and revere a self-defined notion of "natural" above Nature itself. Twenty years ago Ryder coined the term "speciesism" to describe the prejudicial attitudes of humans to nonhumans (he is inclined against the word "animals" when not inclusive of humans), controversially giving its similar status to racism and sexism. Animal Revolution was first published in 1989; this update, 10 years on, refines the theory to reflect 1990s developments, and on the whole the report card reads favourably, though naturally with scope for improvement.
The bulk of the text is a bestial concordance to the English and classical canon. Ryder strives to avoid a familiar catalogue of cruelties, but sets himself the harder task of weaving ideas from eclectic sources onto a framework of British, and to an increasing extent World, history. The detailing is serious but not po-faced--he relishes stories such as the sparrows excommunicated in 1499 for leaving their droppings on a church's pews--yet from 1824 onwards the narrative becomes more political with the forming of the Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Animals (among its founders was anti-slavery campaigner Sir William Wilberforce). A succession of setbacks and inertia, punctuated by legislation, finally erupted in the 1960s into radicalism, with which Ryder was heavily involved, taking things up to the modern day, where debate still rages as to the Society's purpose--rescuing kittens or lobbying politicians. The closing chapters, where Ryder outlines his personal philosophy of painism, are a model of gentle yet insistent didacticism drawn from reserves of ethical militancy, and it is to his credit that he prescribes understanding rather than absolutism when the fur starts to fly. Such compassionate reason, to apply his own words, is "easy to ridicule, hard to refute". --David Vincent
Review
'A fascinating account of how animals have been regarded and treated from ancient times to the present day ... Buy this book for the history and the campaigning ... buy it for the psychology and the ideas too. Even if you don't agree with him, Ryder is never less than stimulating.' International Society for Applied Ethology Newsletter 'It would be difficult to find a text that provides a more comprehensive history of man's changing use and relationship to non-human animals.' 'A book full of valuable observations and insights? This book has something important to say and Richard Ryder knows how to say it.' Freethinker (2000) Richard Ryder analyses such springs of human conduct as machismo, stoicism and squeamishness. He has never been afraid to court controversy or to unleash uncomfortable new ideas. This is a bracing book. Times Literary Supplement As an introduction to the history of human exploitation of animals, and the increasingly effective attempts by the enlightened to make amends, this book cannot be bettered. Dr. Robert Garner - University of Leicester
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This book is the best summary of the background of aw.,
By A Customer
This review is from: Animal Revolution: Changing Attitudes Towards Speciesism (Paperback)
This is the best and most readable book on the subject of why animals have been treated in the way that they have over the centuries. It is scholarly and thoughtful, and not just a catalogue of gruesome abuses, nor a sentimentalised view of almost humanised creatures, but a straightforward account of where we are today in the animal welfare movement - and why.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating; thought provoking; unique; a mine of informatio,
By A Customer
This review is from: Animal Revolution: Changing Attitudes Towards Speciesism (Paperback)
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.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
5.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews) 9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating. Thought provoking. Unique. A mine of info.,
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Animal Revolution: Changing Attitudes Towards Speciesism (Paperback)
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.
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The coming of vegetarian civilization,
By John C. Landon "nemonemini" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Animal Revolution: Changing Attitudes Towards Speciesism (Paperback)
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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