This accessible and cutting-edge work offers a new look at the history of western "civilization,"
one that brings into focus the interrelated suffering of oppressed humans and other animals. Nibert argues persuasively
that throughout history the exploitation of other animals has gone hand in hand with the oppression of women, people
of color, and other oppressed groups. He maintains that the oppression both of humans and of other species of animals
is inextricably tangled within the structure of social arrangements. Nibert asserts that human use and mistreatment
of other animals are not natural and do little to further the human condition.
Nibert's analysis emphasizes the economic and elite-driven character of prejudice, discrimination, and institutionalized
repression of humans and other animals. His examination of the economic entanglements of the oppression of human
and other animals is supplemented with an analysis of ideological forces and the use of state power in this sociological
expose of the grotesque uses of the oppressed, past and present. Nibert suggests that the liberation of devalued
groups of humans is unlikely in a world that uses other animals as fodder for the continual growth and expansion
of transnational corporations and, conversely, that animal liberation cannot take place when humans continue to
be exploited and oppressed.