What to read after What Animals Want?

This book presents a history of animal rights. It brings a novel, sociological perspective to an area that has been addressed largely from a philosophical perspective, or from the entrenched positions of highly committed advocates of a particular position in the debate. This book is about the people who would speak for animals in laboratories. On the one hand, people vie to speak on animals' behalf in the policy arena, to advocate for them in a forum in which they have no direct voice. Animal protectionists are immediately obvious in this role, but so are veterinarians, other animal care professionals, and many scientists. On the other hand, speaking for animals means interpreting them, translating their animal minds into human language; it's a claim of expertise and knowledge rather than commitment and advocacy. But the two are intimately intertwined, and many of the policy debates examined in this book are about these two ways of speaking for animals. This book is offered to those who are hoping for some sort of balance that promotes animal welfare and biomedical progress, not platitudes or irrelevant rules with no real impact in animals' lives.