Three New Books Announced in the Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series

Idan Breier, An Ethical View of Human-Animal Relations in the Ancient Near East (US: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022).

Summary: Exploring the earliest literary evidence for human-animal relations, this volume presents and analyzes biblical and Mesopotamian (Sumerian, Assyrian, and Babylonian) sources from the third millennium BCE through to the consolidation of the biblical literature in the first millennium BCE.

 

Anja Heister, Beyond the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation: From Lethal to Compassionate Conservation (US: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022).

Summary: The North American Model of Wildlife Conservation (NAM) is the driver of a strong anthropocentric stance, which has legalized an ongoing, annual exploitation of hundreds of millions of wild animals, who are killed in the United States through trapping, hunting and other lethal practices. Increasingly, the American public opposes the killing of wild animals for recreation, trophies and profit but has little—if any—knowledge of the Model. With a focus on trapping, this book exposes the NAM’s belief in human supremacy and its consequences for wild animals and their ecosystems, the same value that is driving the ongoing global destruction of nature and accelerating species extinction. Motivated by a deep concern for wild animals who suffer and whose lives are extinguished each year by ‘sportsmen and women’, this book exposes the violent treatment of wild animals inherent in governmental-promoted hunting and trapping programs, while emphasizing the importance of empathy and compassion for other animals in conservation and in our lives.

 

Andrew Linzey & Clair Linzey, An Ethical Critique of Fur Factory Farming (US: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022).

Summary: The fur trade is a multi-million-dollar industry. It is estimated that over 100 million animals are killed in fur farms worldwide annually. This book provides an in-depth analysis of the state of fur factory farming worldwide, and an ethical critique of the main arguments propounded by the fur industry. Consideration is also given to an attempt to justify fur farming through the concept of “Welfur." Andrew Linzey and Clair Linzey argue that from any ethical perspective, fur factory farming fails basic moral tests.