Animal Crisis by philosophers Alice Crary and Lori Gruen is an inspirational and comprehensive book on animal ethics: concise yet packed with an impressive amount of potent information and focused chapters in an easy-to-read narrative. This stunning book would be an excellent core text in an animal ethics class but could work in a range of courses that touch on contemporary social issues, whether in feminist or environmental studies.
Social justice and liberation for “animals,” human or not, is their focus. They say the two leading threads in animal ethics, suffering (Peter Singer in Animal Liberation, 1975) and rights (Tom Regan in The Case for Animal Rights, 1983), create a shadow around the current crisis since they tend to be more “conceptual” (p. 2) without force for liberation. The strands of animal suffering and rights have been isolated from political, corporate, and capitalistic structures that hurt people or violate civil...