Service Animals Books

I found this book to be loaded with good tips for the novice investor, with appropriate warnings that will help you avoid the most common investment pitfalls. Recommended!

The advice and guidance offered by Ms Price is helpful, human, humourous and to-the-point. The step-by-step approach she takes to all aspects of investment activity-from identifying risk quotients to defining styles and purposes of investment-was helpful without being intimidating. I was able to relate to terms and concepts from my own experience, and quickly gained the confidence to open a brokerage account, place a trade, and still sleep at night. I reccomend this book to all investors-novice and experienced-for the clear insights and explanations, and for the details and resources contained within.

Thank you Ms.Price. Your book has given me the confidence to start doing something I've wanted to do for a very long time. It's easy to read and understand. I have recommended it to several friends, and will continue to do so......

B. Smedly

The publisher has another book, same price, also about 270 pages, also written by a woman investor, only it's much better and more detailed than this book. "A Beginner's Guide To Day Trading Online" by Toni Turner is a much better buy.

This book can take you from zero knowledge of the market to a confident level of expertise in investing online. Most valuable is the fact that it's free of the breathless hype that clutters othe books about investing online.

I bought this book because it is something that i can relate to. Overall I give this book 4 stars. It is a rather poor transalation, it could be better but it is extreemly informative and i learned alot obout both the "historey" of zoophillia and about general sex practices that are conciddered "unuasual" by society at different points. it is one of those books that is hard to put down after you et into it. I must admit that i don't aggree with some of the veiws in it concerning peole haveing loveing relationships with thier animal lovers, and the only thing because of that that saves it from getting 2 or 4 stars is that informative nature of the book. Verry interesting and i lernt alot. I think it is a must have for any zoophile's bookshelf, or anybody who is curious concerning our sexual orientation.

a Zoophile book worm DragonXXX

The subject of sexual congress between human and beast is heavy stuff. It moves sexuality to a higher (or lower, have your pick) dimension, for the object of lust is not another human, or an inanimate object, but a living oprganism capable of its own pleasures and lust. Crossing interspecies barriers is not something to be taken lightly.

All religions and most political systems are very displeased with the notion of man-beast sexual congress. Not so long ago, conviction of such an activity would lead to burning at the stake. Bestiality has intrinsic gravitas.

The book by Midas Dekkers is best defined in terms of what it is not: certainly it is not a "how to" book, nor is it an erotic or lascivious tract. Even is many illustrations lack eroticism. The book leaves most things involving the actual coupling up to the reader's imagination. Nor is it a scientific tract, nor a survey, nor a sexology book. It covers art, and history, and plenty of gossip. Things of that nature; so if the potential reader is seeking a perverse little jolt, this book is not the way of obtaining it.

It explains, in passing, that the most frequent human-animal contacts occur between male and beast; that the woman-animal connection is fairly rare but yet appears more frequently in art and literature than the male-beast duo. The explanation for this is that until recently women were poorly represented as artists and writers, and therefore it was men who defined the acts and perhaps ventilated their fantasies in the process. The many portrayals of Leda and the swan attest to this. The swan, incidentaly, was Zeus in disguise.... Now there is an example of the little gems of information that abound in the book....

Mankind's sexual apetite crosses all species that will accommodate the architecture involved, from chickens to eels, from apes to elephants. The reader would certainly like to know a little more about the mechanics involved, but the book is reticent about such matters.

"Dearest Pet" is a translation from the Dutch. It contain a bibliography heavily weighted with German and Dutch entries, and a fair index that itemizes the wide variety of playmates mentioned in the book, from Airdales to zebras.

I thought this was a really fascinating book that helped me understand better and feel more comfortable with some of the awkward feelings I've been having for my dog.

If you are looking for a book to simply explain the "How to's" (although it does contain some sexual details) this is not it BUT if you are looking for a book that will stimulate your mind, is full of profound theories as to the history and culture differences that bestiality conveys around the world, look no further. While a very small amount of information is very mildly opinionated, it does satisfy two things. Firstly, it is hard to put down and stimulates the mind to consider, ponder and perhaps sympathize with an alternative sexual lifestyle that is not as morally perverse as many think considering its historical background over the last few thousand years. Secondly, it offers quite insightful comments on our love of animals from a sexual and non-sexual sense. This is a book you can read and learn from. Education is a wonderful thing, ignorance is pitiful. The author does not try to persuade you of a sexual lifestyle you may condone or object to but simply lays out facts for you to draw your own conclusions including some clever thought provoking comments like why we are fascinated by fur coats and leather, why certain animals are fond pet favorites. It also deals with factual historical details on bestiality. Some of the origins which you may find downright astonishing and religously could be considered blasphemous. If you are disgusted by the subject matter, read this and perhaps gain an insight why others are not. If you are mildly interested in understanding the subject read on. If you have a fascination for the subject, read and learn why. Whatever your reasons, you don't have to agree with everything but you will gain an education. If you are simply looking for porn material, go buy a magazine with pictures and few words or rent a video.

It is really quite an experiance reading this book ,its like living in a new realm filled with the intrisic details of a new sexual world but with more feelings and lust.I would really recommend this book to anyone who wants to expand his sexual awareness and knowledge into the new millineum.

I bought and read this book about 2 weeks before my Queensland Heeler came home. Within 2 days (he was 7 weeks old at the time) he was house trained and would "come" when we called him. Now at 8 weeks I began teaching him to "sit" and "drop". It literally only took about 5 minutes. I truly believe this is the best method of training a dog. I don't feel bad because I'm choking him or yelling or anything. He wants to do the exercises he's been trained to do. As a society we have been misinformed to think we have to train or dogs using archaic, somewhat violent means. I encourage everyone to at least try this method and if it works for you, pass it on to any pet owner you know. We can make happier, less aggressive dogs.

I highly recommend this book. It was very useful to me. Each exercise includes pictures to show exactly how it should look, including hand signals. There were several obedience areas where my dog was not responding to the way my obedience instructor was teaching the commands, and some areas that weren't covered. I tried using the methods in the book, and she responded very quickly and learned the exercises. This book is great for people who don't want to use harsh methods or who have sensitive dogs. This book is also very useful for training puppies, where only positive reinforcement should be used. The step-by-step directions make it good for beginners.

David Weston's method of dog training follows right along in the modern tradition of "operant conditioning," which I had not heard of before reading this book. Therefore it was not a previous bias which caused me to discount the method as completely inappropriate to dog training! A dog is not a lab rat, to be "shaped" unwittingly by the presence or absence of food. It is disrespectful to your dog to assume so. However, if all you want is the behavior and you don't care about the rapport, or if you have a particularly sensitive dog that doesn't respond well to "traditional" methods, this book is an easy to follow manual of how to make it at least appear obedient.

I highly recommend this book. It was very useful to me. Each exercise includes pictures to show exactly how it should look, including hand signals. There were several obedience areas where my dog was not responding to the way my obedience instructor was teaching the commands, and some areas that weren't covered. I tried using the methods in the book, and she responded very quickly and learned the exercises. This book is great for people who don't want to use harsh methods or who have sensitive dogs. This book is also very useful for training puppies, where only positive reinforcement should be used. The step-by-step directions make it good for beginners.

I really enjoyed this book as it shared my feelings of repect and care for animals. Especially our most domesticated friend the dog. I have used these methods offered in this book and know that they work.I would really love to know if there is an e-mail address for the auther of this book or his Kintala Club as I live in New Zealand and there is not a strong level of support offered here for this kind of practise. Particularly the socalising before tweleve weeks and immunisation. I would recommand this book to anyone considering a puppy or dog and to read it first so they know and understand their responsiblities as a dog owner and for the best they cangive their dog. Yours Helen from New Zealand.

I found it to be a helpful resource. I will probably refer back to it as I continue learning about animal assisted therapy.

The Hanbook on Animal-Assisted Therapy is a useful resource on the topic of anthrozoology and animal-assisted therapy. The sections of the book are written by many of the most prominant researchers in the field. The book is interesting, as well as informative.

This book contains bonafide information to help AAT professionals in everything from forming a practice, zoonotic disease charts, guidelines for AAT in a variety of settings (hospitals, schools etc.), and with a variety of clients to Nature therapy and animal abuse issues.

Additionally, it offers information on assessment tools that can be applied to research in this area. It explains different statistical methods and how to use them.

This book is a 'must have' reference. It is encouraging to see good literature emerging in this field. As a practitioner in this area, I am encouraged by works like this.

This tome features a number of various case study articles on different subjects pertaing to not only animal-assisted therapy, but also to service animals (there is a significant difference). One area (service animals)is for disabled individuals who have an animal-usually a dog-to assist them. The other area is for those interested in Biophilia, how clients benefit from exposure to animals from a therapeutic stance, where handlers bring their animals into long-term facilities, and the like.
I enjoyed this book so much I loaned my copy to a psychiatrist at a neighboring mental health clinc that I know who was conducting a group. She wanted to talk to them about the benefits of service animals for those with mental and emotional disorders, but didn't have the background on the subject. This book was indispensible for her. I plan to add more volumes like it to my library.

Seeing eye dogs for the blind are the best known example of animal assisted therapy. But this book describes several other cases, that are perhaps not so familiar. Like the theraputic effect on humans of watching a fish tank. Or interacting with chimpanzees. Or, in some instances, with snakes. The book describes how for many people, there is a stress reduction effect of touching these animals.

Other aspects covered in the book include listing stress signs in dogs or cats. As possible warnings that they might not be useful as companions. Another topic is the difference between a child and an adult having a pet companion.

The book is a good guide for those health care professionals seeking to match animals with humans.

This book was first published in 1986. It is a classic in the field of the study of human animal interactions. If you are interested in this subject you HAVE to read this book. The book reflects a totally novel approach to our understanding of human animal relationships. If you care about animals and the environment this is a book for you. You'll never think about pork or pets the same way again.

In the Company of Animals is the single best introduction to anthrozoology - the study of human-animal interactions. A woman once told me about her experience reading it. She said simply, "That book changed my life." Serpell is a both a powerful writer and a leading scholar in this field. The first half of In the Company of Animals is largely concerned with the who, what, and why of maintaining non-human animals as companions. In the breadth of his coverage, Serpell displays an impressive command of psychology, ethology, history, cultural anthropology, and behavioral medicine. A brief sampling of a few representative topics illustrates the span of Serpell's intellectual vision: the role of pets in sixteenth century witchcraft, the effects of watching aquarium fish on blood pressure, bestiality, social parasitism, and why dogs rather than pigs became companion animals. Serpell argues that individuals who keep pets have often been viewed with scorn, suspicion, and pity. At times, pet owners have been subjected to persecution and even death. Thus, this part of the book is essentially a defense of companion animals. Serpell reviews recent studies documenting the benefits of pets to human health, psychological well-being, and the amelioration of loneliness. He concludes that the company of animals serves to buffer their owners from the interpersonal isolation all too common in modern industrial societies.
The second half of In the Company of Animals focuses on the darker side of human-animal interactions. Serpell is particularly adept at describing paradoxes inherent if our interactions with other species. Among my favorites are the dual roles of puppies in Southeast Asian households (pets and dinner), Adolf Hitler's commitment to animal welfare, and the love people have for dogs coupled with an equally passionate loathing for their immediate progenitor, the wolf. Serpell, however, goes further than listing the foibles that characterize human-animal relationships. He develops an explanation, suggesting that these paradoxes ultimately reflect the evolutionary processes which have shaped the human mind.
Serpell believes that moral conflict that emerges in our relationships with animals stems from a tendency we inherited from our hunter-gatherer forbearers -- the penchant for meat. By nature we are exploiters of animals. But unlike tigers and wolves and boa constrictors, we are carnivores with a sense of guilt. As a result we have developed psychological mechanisms that allow us to maintain the "myth of human supremacy." He believes this is an illusion which developed as cultures shifted from hunter-gatherer economies to those based on the slaughter of domestic animals. This hypothesis provides a powerful perspective on the contradictions seen in human-animal relationships.
While readers may not agree with all of Serpell's ideas, they will find that In the Company of Animals is a beautifully written book that is rich in both facts and provocative ideas. It will appeal to both animal lovers and the scholars who study them.

Although claiming to be a study of human-animal relationships, this book offers an endless recital of man's inhumanity to man, to support the book's theme that man's history with animals has been even worse. Very poorly thought out and extremely long-winded, this book reads like an overblown Usenet message--"those other people are all so horrible, but we animal lovers are OK, aren't we?" Oddly, Serpell seems so rooted in the very "human supremacist" philosophy that he rails against, that he ends up reinforcing that very philosophy. Not enlightening at all; I feel like a pall has been cast over my relationships with both people and animals. You would learn far more by taking the money and time you might waste on this book, and spending them on your own dog or cat or whatever animal you please.

In the Company of Animals is the single best introduction to anthrozoology - the study of human-animal interactions. A woman once told me about her experience on reading it. She said simply, "That book changed my life." Serpell is a both a powerful writer and a leading scholar in this field. The first half of In the Company of Animals is largely concerned with the who, what, and why of maintaining non-human animals as companions. In the breadth of his coverage, Serpell displays an impressive command of psychology, ethology, history, cultural anthropology, and behavioral medicine. A brief sampling of a few representative topics illustrates the span of Serpell's intellectual vision: the role of pets in sixteenth century witchcraft, the effects of watching aquarium fish on blood pressure, bestiality, social parasitism, and why dogs rather than pigs became companion animals. Serpell argues that individuals who keep pets have often been viewed with scorn, suspicion, and pity. At times, pet owners have been subjected to persecution and even death. Thus, this part of the book is essentially a defense of companion animals. Serpell reviews recent studies documenting the benefits of pets to human health, psychological well-being, and the amelioration of loneliness. He concludes that the company of animals serves to buffer their owners from the interpersonal isolation all too common in modern industrial societies.
The second half of In the Company of Animals focuses on the darker side of human-animal interactions. Serpell is particularly adept at describing paradoxes inherent if our interactions with other species. Among my favorites are the dual roles of puppies in Southeast Asian households (pets and dinner), Adolf Hitler's commitment to animal welfare, and the love people have for dogs coupled with an equally passionate loathing for their immediate progenitor, the wolf. Serpell, however, goes further than listing the foibles that characterize human-animal relationships. He develops an explanation, suggesting that these paradoxes ultimately reflect the evolutionary processes which have shaped the human mind.
Serpell believes that moral conflict that emerges in our relationships with animals stems from a tendency we inherited from our hunter-gatherer forbearers -- the penchant for meat. By nature we are exploiters of animals. But unlike tigers and wolves and boa constrictors, we are carnivores with a sense of guilt. As a result we have developed psychological mechanisms that allow us to maintain the "myth of human supremacy." He believes this is an illusion which developed as cultures shifted from hunter-gatherer economies to those based on the slaughter of domestic animals. This hypothesis provides a powerful perspective on the contradictions seen in human-animal relationships.
While readers may not agree with all of Serpell's ideas, they will find that In the Company of Animals is a beautifully written book that is rich in both facts and provocative ideas. It will appeal to both animal lovers and the scholars who study them.

As a professor of anthropology who teaches a course on Anthrozoology at Western Illinois University, I highly recommend In the Company of Animals. Anthrozoology (the scientific study of human-animal interaction) is a dynamic new area of study and Dr Serpell is one of the founders. This book is required reading for my course, and students love it! Serpell's work explores the phenomena of domestication and pet keeping, or companion animals (as we prefer to call them now), from a cross-cultural and evolutionary perspective that is highly anthropological. Shame on us! An Anthropologist should have written this book! I highly recommend this work.

The item had some water wear which was not described by the seller, but other than that it was in good condition and delivered very promptly.

Great Buy! Shipping was fast and transaction was smooth as Mr. Clean's noggin.

book was in good shape, fast shipping

This "General Zoology Laboratory Manual" is a well-structured atlas, whose versatility would be appreciated by both students and teachers. The quality photos and electron micrographs used in this book are attractive.
Its primary target are Zoology undergrads; however, most High School biology tutors would find it irresistible. Its charts and pictures are accompanied by descriptive illustrations, which include accurate breakdown of the specimens' anatomy, morphology, and taxonomy.
This book assembled all those animals with characteristic features of zoological importance. Its scope ran from the lower invertebrates to the more advanced vertebrates. It is a fine practical guide.

This is an extremely informative full reference guide to high school through introductory college level biology. It's use of electron micrographs as well as color photos and diagrams makes it clear to understand,and easy to learn from. The book covers all of the most dissected specimens, and some oddballs. A must have for any teacher of biological science!

"The Great Ape Project" is a good collection of reasons for supporting the project of the same name.

This book is an excellent source of information provided by a variety of scientific and legal experts. The authors show us the rich emotional and cultural lives of non-human great apes. Researchers who use other apes because of their genetic and psychological complexity ought to be required to read this book. Indeed, the one flaw of this book is the fact that a few chapters are the works of researchers who have used, for example, the linguistic talents of other apes to advance their own careers. Other sections of the book, including a chapter vividly comparing the non-human and human slave trade, and a description of the case for legal rights based on the personhood of hominids, underscore that flaw with haunting and brilliant sensitivity.

Overall, The Great Ape Project lucidly demonstrates the unconscionability of continuing to use the other apes for experimentation, for teaching, for trade in their body parts, and in the entertainment industry. Moreover, it inspires us to broaden our definition of slavery to include our nearest living relatives.

I have to admit, our family's copy of the Great Ape Project sat on the shelf for a few years before I got around to looking at it.I had deep reservations about the book, fearing that it would lead to a reinforcement of anthropocentric criteria for moral standing.However, once I started reading I was hooked. The huge number of contributors with many different viewpoints ranging from rather anthropocentric to radical animal rights make for a lively read. In addition, the book is chockablock full of fascinating information about the great apes--they really are more similar to us than even I, an animal rightist for years, would have thought possible. A challenging book that raises the questions: what does it mean to be human? And how can we justify treating our fellow great apes the way we do?

The essays in this book are remarkable and well done. A very important work for the animal rights movement. I did find it a little repetitive at times, but this did not detract from the point of the book, to make us aware of how closely related great apes really are to us, and their capacity to communicate in a human language.

The contributors make a compelling case for sentience rights for higher primates based on strong empirical evidence and demonstrable harm caused to other higher primates that infringes on their rights claims as sentient beings. I would ask if the authors might consider a similar work that expands the case for cetacean rights on the same basis, though.

This book is exactly how I wanted it! Perfect condition and way more dinosaurs that I thought even existed. Kudos Dougal Dixon!

This is an awesome book, highly recommended for any one who wants a guide to all known dinosaurs. The illustrations are very accurate to habitat and body structure. It goes beyond your basic dinosaurs. Great to use by itself or with other dinosaur guides. The information is also well put together with a lot of background about the names and species.
If you love Dinosaurs, you deffinately want this in your collection.
I use mine all the time for research for my art, very pleased with it.

Thanks for your product - it's too much good!
It's satisfy my better expectatives...


Have a good day...

As another reviewer has pointed out, several illustrations are just not good (the Spinosaurs stuck out in particular for me). Most of the illustrations are excellent which makes you wonder why the poor ones are in there. Another problem is that certain dinosaurs get a full page treatment while some popular dinosaurs get the standard 1/4 page. The first part of the book has some excellent material and the dinosaur "tree" runs across several pages and is really fun to look at. But again, the full-page illustrations dividing the dinosaur eras look like they were drawn by a grade schooler. Still the book is great just for browsing through on a rainy day.

As much as I admire Dougal Dixon's work, this book is disappointing in many ways although it gets an A for effort.

These days, with the computer-generated lifelike images of dinosaurs that are now familiar from the Dorling-Kindersley books and the WALKING WITH DINOSAURS shows and books, if a book is to rely instead on paintings, then they must reach a certain standard. John Sibbick's work for the David Norman and Peter Wellnhofer books would be an example.

Unfortunately, the artists in this book contribute rather wan, workmanlike pictures. This is especially problematic in a book treating so very many dinosaurs, since inevitably the job requires rendering several very similar related animals. The artists here tend towards rather ordinary side shots, and just rendering occasional genera in fanciful colors does not provide enough variety to avoid a certain monotony in terms of, for example, the stegosaurs or the prosauropods.

Too often, the artists have apparently not even been directed to render distinctive details of the creature in question. One mosasaur is described as having a large head -- but the picture has an ordinary head like all the others. A nodosaurid is described as having a long neck -- but the picture indicates no such thing, and so on.

The illustrations here would be fine in a book written in the early seventies (they recall typical dino illustrations in kids' dinosaur books of that time). But in an ambitious book like this they are disappointing.

There is also a problem with coverage. Dixon claims to cover "all" of the known genera, but that's an overstatement by a long shot. Rather, he covers most of them, while too often just mentioning others parenthetically, even ones just as well known in terms of material as the ones chosen to feature. Properly speaking, Dixon has selected a goodly number of the known genera, perhaps wanting to avoid a certain monotony in including every single one of groups of similar animals. But this still means that this is not, truly, a comprehensive survey in the way that the Glut encyclopedias, Gregory Paul's theropod book, or on-line lists are.

And it is unclear why in so many cases Dixon includes full illustrated entries on dinosaurs he readily acknowledges are known only from fragments, such as sometimes just a jaw or some leg bones, while again leaving out better known genera.

The text is okay, although each entry is divided into three parts, a kind of intro, a description getting down to specific structural features, and then an often extended caption to the picture. But often it is unclear what the real point is of subdividing the text into these three sections, any one of which could practically substitute for the other. It thus becomes distracting to deal with the choppy quality of the entries, which would better be written as a single piece of text.

Ultimately, the standard against which all dinosaur surveys should be measured is David Norman's from the eighties, which is now increasingly out of date but once gave the most solid, comprehensive coverage of the dinosaur subject possible for non-scientists, complete with John Sibbick's marvelous paintings. Short of a revision of that one, Dixon's book now stands as the closest equivalent, and it is clear that massive effort went into putting it together. (For the record, one nice aspect is the boxes on most page spreads addressing some interesting question such as what happened to the grand old genus TRACHODON.)

But as of now, I am still hoping somebody gives Norman and Sibbick a good deal to give us an encore.

This book taught me so much about the anatomy and physiology of speech and hearing science.

While this text is very detailed, it does not seem to be organized well in my opinion. Information on topics were scattered through out the chapters. I also found the index to be incomplete and not helpful at all.

Great reference item. the book is well written and easy to follow. Highly recommended.

I knew Mr. Zemlin personally when he lived in Brimson Minnesota. I saw the first edition when he first got it off the press and I was very impressed. Sorry to say that Mr. Zemlin has since passed away in 1998. His knowledge of a&p was far greater than any other person I have ever known.

This book was required reading in my graduate program and I am thrilled that it was! I have worked in both acute care as well as school settings and have found this book to be extremely helpful from both ends of the spectrum. An absolutely fantastic desk reference, especially in the acute care setting!

Animals are living, breathing, feeling, living, loving, soul-filled children of God, just as much as we human animals are.

Further, Animals can (and do) speak, only we ignorant human animals are too stupid to take the time to listen.
We human animals are legends in our own minds.

Animals deserve the same love, respect, compassion, and consideration that we afford to anyone else.

Animals have souls....... eternal souls.

To think otherwise is to be ignorant, arrogant, speciesist and one other thing: Wrong.

I highly recommend the book "The Souls of Animals".
It is much better than this book, and the author is much more enlightened than this one is, with all due respect.

Adopt a Cat or a Dog at your local shelter, bond with your new best friend,...... watch, listen and learn from them, and find out what true love and true evolution is all about.


"Man has alot to learn from the higher Animals"
-Mark Twain

When I taught a course on Animals and Ethics, I chose this volume over all others as my primary text. While Peter Singer's ANIMAL LIBERATION first awoke my consciousness to the tragedy of the manner in which humans have regarded and treated animals, I found the philosophical underpinnings of his work (a form of utilitarianism) troublesome (for reasons I won't go into here). On the other hand, I found Tom Regan's THE CASE FOR ANIMAL RIGHTS, to be far too Kantian. Midgley discusses a wide-ranging group of philosophers, but doesn't overly attach herself to any particular moral philosophy. As a result, she is less doctrinaire than any of the other major writers on the topic. The book reeks of common sense, in the way that the English so often seem to have mastered. Just a wonderful, unjustly neglected book.

Mary Midgley examines the general principles that ought to guide our attitude to animals. Midgley quotes a large number of philosophers who in the past have philosophized about animals. Some of them have considered the question of what obligations, if any, we have towards animals. Their answers have depended both on what they take an animal to be and on what they consider to be the cause, the nature and the range of obligations. Descartes, for example, considered that, because animals lacked souls and, more importantly, reasoning faculties, they are mere machines. Even in Descartes' day, such a conclusion must have seemed very odd to anyone who had much to do with animals: for even if one agreed that they did lack souls and reasoning faculties, any farmer or hunter could have told Descartes that relationships with animals are radically different from relationships with machines. But even writers of our own time, while not thinking of animals as machines, still deny them the capacity of thought: R.G.Frey because thought requires language and animals cannot speak; Stuart Hampshire because in the absence of language they cannot have concepts. Yet the simplest observations of how animals communicate with each other and even with humans would seem to suggest that thought, concepts and reasoning do not depend totally on a human language.

Behaviourists go even further: we cannot even be sure that animals have feelings. The denial of thought and feelings to animals serve to erect such a strong barrier between the human and the animal species that we can exclude the animal species from the obligations we feel towards our fellow human beings. One of the most striking part of Midgley's book is her demonstration how easily past generations were able to overlook even other humans as belonging to a group towards which they had obligations. Thus the Athenians, who prided themselves on civic equality, and the Americans who proclaimed that all men were created equal, simply assumed that slaves did not count as humans: indeed Aristotle described slaves as being merely "living instruments". The Chartists demanded universal suffrage for men, but either did not even think of extending that demand to women or, if they did, found some rationalization for excluding them. The excluded groups were, in Midgley's words, consigned to the outer darkness, beyond the outer periphery of a group towards the members of which certain obligations were recognized. In the 20th century, denials of full membership of the group and the discrimination which this entails have been condemned under the name of various kinds of "-isms": racism for denying membership to other races, sexism for denying it to women, ageism for denying it to the old - and now speciesism for denying it to animals. Midgley's book is a sign that the time has come to widen the periphery of our obligations to include animals.

Midgley admits that it is natural to be more concerned with those who are closest to us, and she has a diagram of concentric circles to illustrate that we are concerned most immediately with our family, then with our tribe, then with our nation, then with our species, and only then with non-human species. We often treat appallingly badly and cast into the "outer darkness" human groups that are outside the smaller circles; but any ethically sensitive person has to condemn such behaviour: charity, as the proverb has it, begins at home, but it ought not to stop there. This is the principle that should also apply when we consider the outer circle of the non-human species.

Midgley's tone is always moderate and she never takes up the position of radical or extreme zoophiles who would want us to give to all animals exactly the same rights as we give to humans. She accepts that there must be some priority of considerations and that there can be situations where it is reasonable for us to put the interests of humans before those of animals, though she says that such cases are much fewer than is often supposed. They would include, for example, dealing with locusts and other pests. She does not go into specific details about killing animals for food; but one can deduce from her text that she would accept that Eskimoes cannot be vegetarians and are therefore justified to kill for food, and that she does not condemn pastoral societies who treat their animals well prior to slaughtering them. On the other hand she clearly abhors stuffing geese to produce paté de foie gras. She states the general principle that great suffering inflicted on animals on the outer periphery ought to weigh against the minor advantage that this might bring to those within the inner circles.

One would like to think that at the end of her examination, Midgley had arrived at positions which most sensitive people would have reached without all that philosophizing, guided merely by their humanity and common sense. Most of them would understand instinctively why animals matter; but unfortunately many people give this understanding such a low priority that as citizens they do not do enough to take on the vested interests and those who are too apathetic to care very much. Perhaps this well-written and wise little book would stir them into action.

Robert Moore above says it all, but I just wanted to add that this is one of the best philosophy books I've ever read. I teach philosophy so that's a big thing to say. The philosophy of the writer Midgley is very very sharp and although it's common sense in some cases, Midgley has extraordinary common sense.

While the French are fruit loops and the Americans dry as dust in philosophy, Midgley operates out of a witty but kind, sharp but not prickly, Britishness, that is too often as Moore put it, unjustly neglected.

If you're tired of stupid Deleuze and mindless Foucault, as well as erudite but incomprehensible Peirce, open up Midgley. Midgley, Midgley, Midgley!

I've read three of her books in a row, and this one is by far the best. Midgley is right on the money in every sentence throughout this book.

Bravura performance without a trace of Deleuzian diva-dom.

Somehow she gets you to see that animals aren't that different from us (at least among the social species of animal such as cats and dogs and simians) and she also provides us with a primer of philosophers on animal and women's rights in tight little nuggets that are highly condensed and yet insatiably readable. This is the book for anyone interested in teaching a course on animal rights. Nothing else will do.