The author wrote in the Introduction to this 1989 book, "This book is not another catalogue of cruelties... Rather, this is an attempt to look behind such phenomena to establish explanatory links, and to examine the changing relationships between human and nonhuman over the centuries, using history... as a framework for new ideas... I have been at least four people while writing this book---campaigner, psychologist, and 'ideas man' as well as historian."
He observes that many early conservation efforts were "motivated by human self-interest... designed simply to improve sport by creating artificially high populations of game species." (Pg. 214) He suggests that the English Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) "was hampered by individuals in its upper eschelons who had a vested interest" (e.g., in not preventing cruelty to circus animals; pg. 137). In the 1980s, when financial mismanagement was discovered in the RSPCA, "two out of the four key 'whistle-blowers' ... were ignominiously forced out of the society... they received neither apology nor thanks." (Pg. 205)
He observes with alarm that the incidence of complaints to the RSPCA has significantly increased in the 1980s, and comments, "Sociologists will have to analyze in depth ... to determine whether and why the Britain of the 1980s is crueller than for many decades." (Pg. 224)
He ultimately reports that "more evidence accrues to suggest that nonhumans are conscious and feel pain... It matters not if an animal... is intelligent or communicative, or has an immortal soul. All that matters is that it is conscious." (Pg. 324-325)
This is an interesting and unique discussion of many of the key issues in the "Animal Rights" movement.
