Overview

Full Product Details

9781479825967

Table of Contents

Reviews

This is perhaps the single best book ever written about animal suffering and why the world needs to go vegan. Few philosophers have spoken to us with such power and conviction on a matter of life and death--a matter as consequential for our own future as for the other animals. The reach of the author's scholarship in laying out the myriad implications of the animal system is astonishing. Yet rarely does reading a book of this depth give such pleasure. There is hardly a sentence that is not deep, surprising, important, and with the capacity to change our lives. The great poet Rainer Maria Rilke famously ended his poem ‘Archaic Torso of Apollo’ with the words: 'You must change your life.' The Omnivore's Deception will do that for you. You cannot read this book without changing your life. It is a work not only of immense moral significance, but a masterpiece. * Jeffrey Moussaief Masson, author of When Elephants Weep * Stunning and brilliantly written. For half a century I’ve strived to awaken the world to the irrationality and needless destruction built into meat-centered diets. Now, Sanbonmatsu has awakened me. He digs to new layers of the crisis and also enables us to see the wider positives that arise as we embrace a plant-and-planet-centered diet. * Frances Moore Lappé, founder of the Small Planet Institute and author of World Hunger: Ten Myths, Diet for a Small Planet * This riveting and thought-provoking book traces the recent history of the belief that animals can be raised and killed “humanely.” Then it systematically demolishes that belief. In Sanbonmatsu’s account, we learn how writers like Michael Pollan, Temple Grandin, and Barbara Kingsolver created bedtime stories for adults so that they could have their meat and eat it too; eat it, that is, without ethical qualms. But as Sanbonmatsu shows, the “new” meat economy is as unethical and ecologically damaging as the old. By turns harrowing and deeply moving, The Omnivore's Deception is the rare work that engages our sympathies and our intellect in equal measure. A dazzling achievement. * Carol Adams, author of The Sexual Politics of Meat * This book is a must-read for anyone prepared to honestly confront the moral obscenity, and the fatefulness for all life on Earth, of the world-wide killing field so often sanitized with the label 'animal agriculture.' The Omnivore’s Deception recounts with relentless clarity how the ecocidal magnitude of the crime of human-animal relations is repeatedly concealed with comforting myths about ‘humane slaughter’, ‘happy meat’, and ‘enlightened omnivorism’. It is a lesson, as invaluable as it is terrible, that we must imbibe if we are to move toward a more just and livable future. * Alice Crary, author of Inside Ethics: The Demands of Moral Thought * All too often books about the cognitive and emotional lives of animals that focus on our meal plans extol how smart and deeply sentient so-called ‘food animals’ are, tell us how they suffer immensely during their horrific lives on factory farms, in transport trucks, and finally on their way to bloody killing floors, and then offer all sorts of lame anthropocentric apologies and contradictory messages for why it's okay for us to eat them after all. In The Omnivore's Deception, John Sanbonmatsu does nothing of the sort. He forcefully argues that exploiting and killing other animals for human desires along with the ecological damage for which industrial factory farming is responsible is morally indefensible and that widespread self-deception needs to come to an end. When we switch from saying ‘What's for dinner?’ to ‘Who's for dinner?’ Sanbonmatsu's urgent discussion will make much more sense to the countless people who say something like, ‘Well, I know they suffer, but I love my burger or tuna.’ Sanbonmatsu's masterpiece is a must read for the unconverted and the converted. It is that compelling. * Marc Bekoff, author of The Emotional Lives of Animals: A Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy, Sorrow, and Empathy―and Why They Matter *

""All too often books about the cognitive and emotional lives of animals that focus on our meal plans extol how smart and deeply sentient so-called ‘food animals’ are, tell us how they suffer immensely during their horrific lives on factory farms, in transport trucks, and finally on their way to bloody killing floors, and then offer all sorts of lame anthropocentric apologies and contradictory messages for why it's okay for us to eat them after all. In The Omnivore's Deception, John Sanbonmatsu does nothing of the sort. He forcefully argues that exploiting and killing other animals for human desires along with the ecological damage for which industrial factory farming is responsible is morally indefensible and that widespread self-deception needs to come to an end. When we switch from saying ‘What's for dinner?’ to ‘Who's for dinner?’ Sanbonmatsu's urgent discussion will make much more sense to the countless people who say something like, ‘Well, I know they suffer, but I love my burger or tuna.’ Sanbonmatsu's masterpiece is a must read for the unconverted and the converted. It is that compelling."" * Marc Bekoff, author of The Emotional Lives of Animals: A Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy, Sorrow, and Empathy―and Why They Matter * ""This is perhaps the single best book ever written about animal suffering and why the world needs to go vegan. Few philosophers have spoken to us with such power and conviction on a matter of life and death--a matter as consequential for our own future as for the other animals. The reach of the author's scholarship in laying out the myriad implications of the animal system is astonishing. Yet rarely does reading a book of this depth give such pleasure. There is hardly a sentence that is not deep, surprising, important, and with the capacity to change our lives. The great poet Rainer Maria Rilke famously ended his poem ‘Archaic Torso of Apollo’ with the words: 'You must change your life.' The Omnivore's Deception will do that for you. You cannot read this book without changing your life. It is a work not only of immense moral significance, but a masterpiece."" * Jeffrey Moussaief Masson, author of When Elephants Weep * ""This riveting and thought-provoking book traces the recent history of the belief that animals can be raised and killed “humanely.” Then it systematically demolishes that belief. In Sanbonmatsu’s account, we learn how writers like Michael Pollan, Temple Grandin, and Barbara Kingsolver created bedtime stories for adults so that they could have their meat and eat it too; eat it, that is, without ethical qualms. But as Sanbonmatsu shows, the “new” meat economy is as unethical and ecologically damaging as the old. By turns harrowing and deeply moving, The Omnivore's Deception is the rare work that engages our sympathies and our intellect in equal measure. A dazzling achievement."" * Carol Adams, author of The Sexual Politics of Meat * ""This book is a must-read for anyone prepared to honestly confront the moral obscenity, and the fatefulness for all life on Earth, of the world-wide killing field so often sanitized with the label 'animal agriculture.' The Omnivore’s Deception recounts with relentless clarity how the ecocidal magnitude of the crime of human-animal relations is repeatedly concealed with comforting myths about ‘humane slaughter’, ‘happy meat’, and ‘enlightened omnivorism’. It is a lesson, as invaluable as it is terrible, that we must imbibe if we are to move toward a more just and livable future."" * Alice Crary, author of Inside Ethics: The Demands of Moral Thought * ""Stunning and brilliantly written. For half a century I’ve strived to awaken the world to the irrationality and needless destruction built into meat-centered diets. Now, Sanbonmatsu has awakened me. He digs to new layers of the crisis and also enables us to see the wider positives that arise as we embrace a plant-and-planet-centered diet."" * Frances Moore Lappé, founded of the Small Planet Institute and author of World Hunger: Ten Myths, Diet for a Small Planet *

Author Information

John Sanbonmatsu is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, MA. He is the editor of Critical Theory and Animal Liberation and author of The Postmodern Prince: Critical Theory, Left Strategy, and the Making of a New Political Subject.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available