Maine Animal Coalition: MAC Bookstore - Books for Adults
MAC Bookstore: Books for Adults
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Book Description
This scholarly and authoritative book examines the cultural and literal history, as well as the natural history and biological needs and concerns of turkeys. Davis explores how turkeys came to be seen as birds who were not only the epitome of failure or stupidity but also the suitable centerpiece of the celebration of freedom in America itself - Thanksgiving. She examines the many varieties of turkeys and uncovers the methods by which millions of turkeys are raised, fattened, and slaughtered on farms around America today.
Davis takes us back to European folklore about turkeys, the myths, fairytales, and downright lies told about turkeys and their habits and habitats. She shows how turkeys in the wild have complex lives and family units, and how they were an integral part of Native American and continental cultures and landscape before the Europeans arrived.
Finally, Davis draws conclusions about our paradoxical, complex, and "bestial" relationship not just with turkeys, but with all birds, and thus with all other animals. She examines how our treatment of animals shapes our other values about ourselves, our relationship with other human beings, and our attitude toward the land, nation, and the world.
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Editorial Reviews published on amazon.com:
From Publishers Weekly
Destined to become a classic in its field, historian Beers's study of the animal advocacy movement in the U.S. since the ASPCA's founding in 1866 fills a glaring historical gap with exceptional style, accuracy and insight. Beers observes that while involvement in the animal rights movement has exploded since the 1975 publication of Peter Singer's Animal Liberation, with more than 7,000 organizations today representing more than 10 million members, the movement has "historical amnesia." To counter this, she shows how animal rights activism "has been far more successful historically and has had a far greater impact of society than previously suggested." Displaying an impressive mastery of social and environmental contexts, the author reviews a range of activism, from the influence of the abolitionist movement on "radical humanists" working for the emancipation of animals in the post-Civil War era, through the antivivisection movement of the late 19th century (which numbered Mark Twain as a member), to the impact of historic legislation such as the 1958 federal Humane Slaughter Act. Beers delivers a superbly convincing account of how early animal advocates "made the developments of 1975 and the years thereafter possible." b&w illus. (July)
Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, as the reader learns here, was founded in 1866, and today more than 7,000 organizations are concerned with the rights and treatment of animals. Much of this study, Beers explains, explores organizations located in the eastern and mid-Atlantic regions, where most animal-advocacy activities occurred. She covers the period between 1865 and 1975, the year when Peter Singer's book Animal Liberation signaled a shift in the cause toward what she labels "liberation ideology." This movement has altered beliefs and actions regarding such varied issues as trapping, sport hunting, dog- and cockfights, strays, scientific experiments, and slaughter. The gains are undeniable, Beers points out; many people have stopped eating veal, wearing fur, or buying products tested on animals, but internal divisions still prevent a more cohesive and powerful movement. Beers' research is immense; there are 62 pages of notes, plus a bibliography. The book is an insightful look at an imperative movement. George Cohen
Copyright American Library Association. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, as the reader learns here, was founded in 1866, and today more than 7,000 organizations are concerned with the rights and treatment of animals. Much of this study, Beers explains, explores organizations located in the eastern and mid-Atlantic regions, where most animal-advocacy activities occurred. She covers the period between 1865 and 1975, the year when Peter Singer's book Animal Liberation signaled a shift in the cause toward what she labels "liberation ideology." This movement has altered beliefs and actions regarding such varied issues as trapping, sport hunting, dog- and cockfights, strays, scientific experiments, and slaughter. The gains are undeniable, Beers points out; many people have stopped eating veal, wearing fur, or buying products tested on animals, but internal divisions still prevent a more cohesive and powerful movement. Beers' research is immense; there are 62 pages of notes, plus a bibliography. The book is an insightful look at an imperative movement. George Cohen
Copyright American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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by Karen Iacobbo and Michael Iacobbo.
Book Description
Vegetarianism is not a diet trend, or the flavor of the month. Instead, it is a philosophy and practice with roots in antiquity. Vegetarianism has existed for centuries in much of the world as a social movement and subculture. In the United States, this subculture has existed for more than 200 years. In this book, the Iacobbos bring this thriving subculture to life. By examining its businesses, organizations, events, scholarship, and influence on the arts, and by interviewing dozens of vegetarians and vegans, the authors reveal a subculture whose members hold a variety of perspectives on everything from animal rights to advocacy, politics, and religion.
About the Authors
KAREN IACOBBO is a journalist, researcher, and Adjunct Professor of Freshman Studies at Johnson & Wales University. She and Michael Iacobbo are the authors of Vegetarian America: A History (Praeger, 2004). MICHAEL IACOBBO is a journalist who has worked for the Associated Press, the Providence Phoenix, and other publications. He and Karen Iacobbo are the authors of Vegetarian America: A History (Praeger, 2004).
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Ethicist Singer and co-author Mason (Animal Factories) document corporate deception, widespread waste and desensitization to inhumane practices in this consideration of ethical eating. The authors examine three families' grocery-buying habits and the motivations behind those choices. One woman says she's "absorbed in my life and my family...and I don't think very much about the welfare of the meat I'm eating," while a wealthier husband and wife mull the virtues of "triple certified" coffee, buying local and avoiding chocolate harvested by child slave labor, though "no one seems to be pondering that as they eat." In investigating food production conditions, the authors' first-hand experiences alternate between horror and comedy, from slaughterhouses to artificial turkey-insemination ("the hardest, fastest, dirtiest, most disgusting, worst-paid work"). This sometimes-graphic expose is not myopic: profitability and animal welfare are given equal consideration, though the reader finishes the book agreeing with the authors' conclusion that "America's food industry seeks to keep Americans in the dark about the ethical components of their food choices." A no-holds-barred treatise on ethical consumption, this is an important read for those concerned with the long, frightening trip between farm and plate.
Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Book Description
A thought-provoking look at how what we eat profoundly affects all living things and how we can make more ethical food choices.
Five Principles for Making Conscientious Food Choices
1. Transparency: We have the right to know how our food is produced.
2. Fairness: Producing food should not impose costs on others.
3. Humanity: Inflicting unnecessary suffering on animals is wrong.
4. Social Responsibility: Workers are entitled to decent wages and working conditions.
5. Needs: Preserving life and health justifies more than other desires.
Peter Singer, the groundbreaking ethicist who "may be the most controversial philosopher alive" (The New Yorker), now sets his critical sights on the food we buy and eat: where it comes from, how it's produced, and whether it was raised humanely. Teaming up once again with attorney Jim Mason, his coauthor on the acclaimed Animal Factories, Singer explores the impact our food choices have on humans, animals, and the environment.
In The Way We Eat, Singer and Mason examine the eating habits of three American families with very different diets. They track down the sources of each family's food to probe the ethical issues involved in its production and marketing. What kinds of meat are most humane to eat? Is "organic" always better? Wild fish or farmed? Recognizing that not all of us will become vegetarians, Singer and Mason offer ways to make the best food choices. As they point out: "You can be ethical without being fanatical."
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Book Description
Veterinarian Brad Brown never knew what to expect when he was called out to a farm to deal with a sick cow or an injured horse. Invariably the cash-strapped farmer would say, "While you're here, Doc" and rattle off a list of surprise medical chores that weren't part of the original call. But whether he was trying to geld a spooked stallion in a blizzard or found himself in the middle of an all-out fracas involving a monkey's abscessed tooth and a shotgun, Dr. Brown took it in stride, with great affection for his four-legged patients as well as his two-legged clients. James Herriot, Baxter Black, and E. B. White rolled into one and wearing rubber boots, Brad Brown gives us a wonderful set of stories from the life of a country vet.
About the Author
Bradford B. Brown, DVM, grew up on a farm in Vassalboro, Maine, and like two of his brothers, graduated from the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine. He joined his brother Phil's veterinary practice in Belfast, Maine, where they worked together for thirteen years, and then continued on his own for ten more, running a small-animal hospital and making hundreds of farm calls. Retired now and living at the family farm in Vassalboro, he's been remembering the people and animals and the many adventures he enjoyed.
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From the back cover: "In Defense of Animals: The Second Wave" brings together the best current ethical thinking about animals. Edited by Peter Singer, who made "speciesism" an international issue in 1975 when he published "Animal Liberation", this new book presents the state of the animal movement that his classic work helped to inspire.
Editorial Reviews:
Ingrid Newkirk, President, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) 2005
"What an exquisite collection of fine writers with compelling philosophies, philosophies that translate into positive ways to change society"
J. M. Coetzee, Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, 2005
"A masterly overview of the field, while the essays on animal-rights activism are engaging and full of good sense"
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by Erik Marcus Meat Market: Animals, Ethics, and Money. In a presentation geared both to compassionate nonvegetarians and to long-time vegans, Erik Marcus will take a critical look at the debate surrounding modern animal agriculture, and expose and clear away the exaggerated claims and counter-claims put forth by the meat industry and its opponents. He will present an examination of corporate agriculture's treatment of animals, and its far-reaching social costs. "A handful of books have played a critical role in redefining how the public perceives agriculture," says John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market. "Meat Market admirably furthers this tradition, and - rarely for a book on this subject - is beautifully written as well."
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Goodall, best known for her decades of work with chimpanzees and baboons, turns to the social significance of the food people eat and of how it reaches our tables. In a style that's both persuasive and Pollyannaish, her guide glides through a quick history of early agriculture, despairs of "death by monoculture" (single-crop farming), warns of the hazards of genetically modified foods and of the disappearance of seed diversity,and bemoans the existence of inhumane animal factories and unclean fish farms—the macro concerns of the environmentally conscious. On a more micro level, she focuses on what individuals can do for themselves. In a grab bag of well-intentioned bromides, Goodall counsels her readers to become vegetarians, celebrates restaurants and grocery stores that seek out locally grown produce, frets about the quality of school lunches and the pervasiveness of fast food–fueled obesity, honors small farmers and warns of a looming water crisis. Most chapters conclude with "what you can do" sections: demand that modified foods be labeled; turn off the tap while brushing your teeth. This book about making healthy choices breaks no new ground, but its jargon-free and anecdote-rich approach makes it a useful primer for grassroots activists, while the Goodall imprimatur could broaden its reach.
Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
--John Robbins, author of THE FOOD REVOLUTION and DIET FOR A NEW AMERICA
"HARVEST FOR HOPE is one of those rare, truly great books that can change the world."
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Thirty years after Frances Lappe's Diet for a Small Planet changed eating habits around the world, she and her daughter Anna bring us a new round of iconoclastic recommendations that break overwhelming issues down to a simple matter of personal choice. Hope's Edge presents many of the same issues of the original title, but it also provides a wealth of new discoveries and possibilities in this era of genetically engineered foods, worldwide famine, and growing rates of obesity-related health issues.
Beyond discussing a wide range of reasons to become a vegetarian (and that means no fish or chicken either, folks), the authors introduce you to a number of individual reasons for hope--Bob, the Wisconsin cheese maker; Jean-Yves, the farmer from Brittany who created the Sustainable Agriculture Network; and Muhammad Yunas, who has changed the lives of countless living in poverty with his remarkable microcredit programs. Along with these stories and the theories they're based on, you'll also find luscious recipes calling for grains, fruits, vegetables, and a handful of dairy products that will delight your taste buds and your conscience.
The Lappes firmly believe that the choices of low-level consumers have the potential to make positive changes, both in the world economy and in our physical health. By eating a vegetarian diet, shopping with care, and cooking with love, we might all brighten our future tremendously.
-- Jill Lightner -- This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Editorial Reviews
Book Description
In a thoughtful and thought-provoking contribution to the study of animals and the Holocaust, Karen Davis makes the case that significant parallels can-and must-be drawn between the Holocaust and the institutionalized abuse of billions of animals in factory farms.
Carefully setting forth the conditions that must be met when one instance of oppression is used metaphorically to illuminate another, Davis demonstrates the value of such comparisons in exploring the invisibility of the oppressed, historical and hidden suffering, the idea that some groups were "made" to serve others through suffering and sacrificial death, and other concepts that reveal powerful connections between animal and human experience-as well as human traditions and tendencies of which we all should be aware.
About the Author
Karen Davis, Ph.D. is the President of United Poultry Concerns. She is the author of Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs: An Inside Look at the Modern Poultry Industry. She lives in Machipongo, Virginia.
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
British artist Sue Coe is well known for her social and political paintings and illustrations, which appear regularly in such publications as the New York Times and the New Yorker. Her latest effort is the disturbing book Dead Meat, a visual record of Coe's visits to 40 slaughterhouses, cattle ranches, and hatcheries to document the grisly practices of the meat-packing industry. Although she was not allowed to photograph on the premises, she was permitted to draw and sketch, and much of this work is jarringly graphic. Incorporated with the artwork are her thoughts and observations laid out in diary form. Even if you don't agree with Coe's politics, this is social and political art at its most powerful, in the tradition of Goya, Daumier, and Rockwell Kent.--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Publishers Weekly
Political artist Coe spent years visiting slaughterhouses and meat farms in the U.S., Canada and England, all the while drawing and writing about what she saw. The result is a fascinating and revealing portrait of the institutions behind the meat we eat. Coe's illustrations, which appear regularly in such publications as the New York Times and the New Yorker, have the sharply lined, affecting realism of a Diego Rivera mural. Her first-person account is matter-of-fact, thoughtful and engaging. Coe's book is political, and she clearly hopes it will make readers think twice about what they put into their mouths, but she does not preach and is unafraid to confront her own complicity: "Every dollar I get drips with blood too," she writes. Her empathetic rendering of the workers she encounters is reminiscent of Studs Terkel at his best, and the parallels she draws between society's treatment of meat animals and its working classes are disturbing and convincing. Cockburn's introductory essay traces the history of the meat industry with his customary shrewd sociopolitical insight, but without falling into polemics. Dead Meat will appeal not just to those interested in animal rights, but to anyone who cares about how society functions.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Review
"As this book explores, acts of kindness, even in the simplest ways, are what make our lives meaningful, bringing happiness to ourselves and others."
- The Dalai Lama
Choosing a compassionate lifestyle that makes you feel good and positively impacts on the environment and on animals has never been easier. In this practical and accessible handbook, loaded with resources for all products that are mentioned, Ingrid Newkirk presents fabulous options that will not only enhance your life, but those of your neighbors, your community, animals, and the earth itself.
From comfortable home furnishings, to delicious foods, to fashionable clothing there are a myriad of choices to be made that can have a lasting positive effect on the well-being of animals and the environment, including:
- recognizing hidden animal ingredients in cosmetics and household products
- raising ecologically aware and animal-friendly kids
- creating healthy, environmentally-friendly meals for everyday and special occasions
- dressing with style without using leather or other animal products
- dealing kindly with mice, insects, and other 'pests' in home or garden
- adopting the right animal companion for you
- volunteering and investing in eco- and animal-friendly companies
- traveling with Eco-consciousness
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Is there a blocked vegetarian in your life? Find out what that means for you and the other people in your life. Carol Adams offers this survival guide for those of us who face daily life with carnists.
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In a style at once simple and elegant, Regan dispels the negative image of animal rights advocates perpetrated by the mass media, unmasks the fraudulent rhetoric of "humane treatment" favored by animal exploiters, and explains why existing laws function to legitimize institutional cruelty. Written by the leading philosophical spokesperson for animal rights, Tom Regan's shocking expose of animal abouse makes an essential and lasting contribution that will significantly impact the history of animal rights advocacy.
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Dominion is a plea for human benevolence and mercy, a scathing attack on those who would dismiss animal activists as mere sentimentalists, and a demand for reform from the government down to the individual. Matthew Scully has created a groundbreaking work, a book of lasting power and importance for all of us.
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"This is an impassioned, fascinating, and in many ways startling book." --Cass Sunstein, New York Times Book Review. 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.
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The first scientific exploration of those animals, from honeybees to gorillas, whose abilities should entitle them to legal rights as persons.
Are we ready for parrots and dolphins to be treated as persons before the law? In this unprecedented exploration of animal cognition along the evolutionary spectrum-from infants and children to other intelligent primates, from dolphins, parrots, elephants, and dogs to colonies of honeybees-Steve Wise finds answers to the big question in animal rights today: Where do we draw the line?
Readers will be enthralled as they follow Wise's firsthand account of the world's most famous animal experts at work: Cynthia Moss and the touchingly affectionate families of Amboseli; Irene Pepperberg and her amazing and witty African Grey parrot, Alex; and Penny Paterson with the formidable gorilla Koko. In many cases, Wise was able to sustain an extended conversation with these extraordinary creatures. No one with even a shred of curiosity about animal intelligence or justice will want to miss this book.
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Millions of people live with cats, dogs, and other pets, which they treat as members of their families. But through their daily behavior, people who love those pets, and greatly care about their welfare, help ensure short and painful lives for millions, even billions of animals that cannot easily be distinguished from dogs and cats. Today, the overwhelming percentage of animals with whom Westerners interact are raised for food. Countless animals endure lives of relentless misery and die often torturous deaths. The use of animals by human beings, often for important human purposes, has forced uncomfortable questions to center stage: Should people change their behavior? Should the law promote animal welfare? Should animals have legal rights? Should animals continue to be counted as 'property'? What reforms make sense? 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.
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The first complete history of vegetarianism in the United States, this story reveals the people, the organizations, and the events from the late 1700s to the present. Despite generally held notions that today's vegetarianism sprang from 1960s counterculture and that prior to that its only advocates were fanatics and fringe groups, the Iacobbos explore strong movements in other historical eras, whose proponents included esteemed physicians, socialites, and other notable members of the establishment. Until now, no one has chronicled the contributions that advocates of vegetarianism have made to the American way of life in areas such as general eating habits, preventative medicine, feminism, environmental awareness, and elsewhere.
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For the first time, the complete, exciting story of the landmark trial that led to the abolition of slavery in the Western world.
The 1772 London trial of James Somerset, rescued from a ship bound for the West Indies slave markets, was a decisive turning point in history. As in the Scopes trial, two encompassing world views clashed in an event of passionate drama. Steven M. Wise, trial lawyer and legal historian, has uncovered layer upon layer of fascinating revelations in a case which threatened, according to slave owners, to bring the economy of the British Empire to a crashing halt. In a gripping narrative of Somerset's trial-and of the slave trials that led up to it-he sets the stage for the unexpected decision by the famously conservative judge, Lord Mansfield, which would lead to the abolition of slavery, both in England and the United States, and the end of the African slave trade.
The characters in this great historical moment go beyond a screenwriter's dream: Somerset's novice attorneys arguing their first case; the fervent British abolitionist Granville Sharp, a cross between Ralph Nader and William Lloyd Garrison, who had brought case after case to court in an attempt to abolish slavery; the master's two-faced and skillful lawyer, who had recently argued before Mansfield that slavery could not exist in England; and finally, the greatest judge of his time, Lord Mansfield, whose own mulatto grand-niece, Dido Belle, was his slave.
As the case drew to a close Lord Mansfield spoke these stirring words that continue to resound more than two centuries later: "Let Justice be done, though the Heavens may fall."
A Merloyd Lawrence Book
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Editorial Review:
The authors of Becoming Vegetarian explore the benefits of a vegan diet (eating without meat, eggs or dairy products). More and more people are being motivated to become vegans because of the impact of their nutritional choices on their health, the environment, animal rights, and human hunger. As registered dietitians, Davis and Melina are well-qualified to provide the latest information on: how a vegan diet can protect against cancer, heart disease, and other chronic illnesses getting all the protein you need without meat meeting your needs for calcium without dairy products what vegans need to know about B12 why good fats are vital to healthy and how to get them balanced diets for infants, children, and seniors pregnancy and breast-feeding tips for vegan moms considerations for overweight, underweight, and eating disorders achieving peak performance as a vegan athlete how to deal gracefully with a non vegan world.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"A welcome addition to the expanding body of work on animal rights. Highly readable and insightful." -- Tom Regan, author of Empty Cages: Facing the Challenge of Animal Rights
Product Description:
This theoretically rigorous book examines all the major arguments for animal rights in order to develop an ethical system that includes humans and animals.
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Editorial Reviews
Product Description:
Critical world problems call for education that addresses the values and behaviors that perpetuate suffering, oppression, and destruction. Humane education does this, offering young people deeply meaningful education about the issues of our time, teaching them to be critical and creative thinkers, inspiring their reverence and respect, and empowering them to be conscientious decision-makers. This book offers teachers clear suggestions for implementing humane education in both classrooms and non-traditional educational settings. Inviting and easy to use, it describes the four elements of humane education, along with stories, examples, case studies, activities and resources.
Zoe Weil is president of the International Institute for Humane Education. A frequent speaker, she authored Above All, Be Kind: Raising a Humane Child in Challenging Times.
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About the Authors
Andrew Linzey is a member of the Faculty of Theology, Oxford University, and Bede Jarrett Senior Research Fellow at Blackfriars. He is also Honorary Professor in Theology at Birmingham University and Special Professor at Saint Xavier University, Chicago. He has written or edited twenty books, including Aninal Theology, Animal Rites: Liturgies of Animal Care, Animal Theology, and Animals on the Agenda: Questions about Animals for Theology and Ethics.
Paul Barry Clarke, as a teacher and researcher in the Department of Government at the University of Essex, has written and edited over twelve books in political philosophy. He is the author of Autonomy Unbound, Deep Citizenship, and Citizenship, and has recently coedited and contributed to the Encyclopedia of Democratic Thought.
Product Description:
This comprehensive and diverse anthology, the only one of its kind, illuminates the complex evolution of moral thought regarding animals and includes writings from ancient Greece to the present. Animal Rights reveals the ways in which a variety of thinkers have addressed such issues as our ethical responsibilities for the welfare of animals, whether animals have rights, and what it means to be human.
Maine Animal Coalition, All rights reserved P.O. Box 6683, Portland, Maine 04104
mac@maineanimalcoalition.org | v. 207-773-2215
