Animals, Property and the Law

A seminal work, which was followed by a number of other influential books by the same author on related subjects, examining the effect of the legal categorization of animals as property and including discussion of the history of human treatment of animals, anticruelty statutes, vivisection, the Federal Animal Welfare Act and specific legal cases that have demonstrated the law’s structural defects. This discussion leads the author to the conclusion that there is a fundamental and profound conflict between our professed concern with the humane treatment of animals and the fact of horrific abuse permitted by the law and that abolitionism, rather than efforts to improve treatment, is the way forward.