The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal Slavery [Paperback]

Marjorie Spiegel (Author), Alice Walker (Foreword)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Spiegel, executive director of the Institute for the Development of Earth Awareness, has revised her 1989 book to present an in-depth exploration of the similarities between the violence humans have wrought against other humans and our culture's treatment of animals. Using considerable scholarship, she makes a strong case for links between white oppression of black slaves and human oppression of animals. Her thesis is not that the oppressions suffered by black people and animals have taken identical forms but that they share the same relationship between the oppressor and the oppressed. These comparisons include the brandings and auctions of both slaves and animals, the hideous means of transport (slave ships, truckloads of cattle), and the tearing of offspring from their mothers. Her illustrative juxtapositions are graphic, e.g., a photograph of a chimpanzee in a syphilis experiment beside a photo of a black man in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. As Alice Walker writes in the preface, "This powerful book...will take a lifetime to forget." Chilling yet enlightening, this provocative book is vitally important in our efforts to understand the roots of individual and societal violence. It belongs in all libraries. [The book received a special award from The International Society for Animal Rights.?Ed.]?Eva Lautemann, DeKalb Coll. Lib., Clarkston, Ga.
-?Eva Lautemann, DeKalb Coll. Lib., Clarkston, Ga.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Fascinating..." The New York Review of Books

"An extremely important book honest and fearless...Marjorie Spiegel has said the single most important thing there is to say about animals. I love this book." Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, Author of The Hidden Life Of Dogs

"This powerful bookwill take a lifetime to forget." Alice Walker, Author of The Color Purple, from her foreword to "The Dreaded Comparison"

"This book belongs in all libraries." Library Journal

"THE DREADED COMPARISON: HUMAN AND ANIMAL SLAVERY by Marjorie Spiegel...executive director of the Institute for the Development of Earth Awareness compares the exploitation of human slaves and of animals, as well as explores the putative justifications of those who profit." Publishers Weekly

"Marjorie Spiegel ...has written a deeply provocative book." David Brion Davis, Sterling Professor of History, Yale University

"THE DREADED COMPARISON is a wonderful and important book...I loved it. I urge everyone to read it." Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, Author, When Elephants Weep

THE DREADED COMPARISON should be placed in schoolrooms across the universe. Gordon Parks, Photographer and Author

Spiegels book is a powerful and important statement about oppression and violence in Western culture. The author writes "To those who would be master, what matters is not so much who their slaves will be, but that there are slaves to be had". This work is accessible to all adult audiences, and would be suitable for college courses at any level in sociology, philosophy, or peace studies, or examing issues of oppression in contemporary animal issues. Multicultural Review

"...eerie parallels between slavery and dominance over animals are well described in this provocative book. We know that slaves have been treated like animals; Spiegel asks us to consider why we treat animals like slaves." Tom Hayden, California State Senator

"...Fascinating and beautifully concise." James Merrill, Author, The Changing Light at Sandover

"...this book is all the more powerful for the testimony of slaves and descendants of slaves who have voiced their empathy strongly with the rest of oppressed creation..." The New Scientist

"[An] invaluable contribution...Marjorie Spiegels extraordinary book, The Dreaded Comparison, with its judiciously chosen quotations and stunningly juxtaposed illustrations...packs a huge punch." Boston Book Review

"[A] gem..." Choice

THE DREADED COMPARISON is essentially a consciousness-raising exercise..." The Womens Review of Books -- Book Review

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Mirror Books/I.D.E.A.; 3rd,Revised & enlarged edition (April 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0962449334
• ISBN-13: 978-0962449338
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 8.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #703,013 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 44 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal Slavery March 28, 2002

By Eve Spencer

Format:Paperback

This is an unforgettable and powerful book, by an author who has captured the essence of violence; and shows how violence towards non-human animals holds the key and ultimate solution to the creation of a violence-free society. Alice Walker, who writes the Foreward says that once this book is read, it will take a lifetime to forget. Others say it should be required reading in our schools and homes. It provocatively reveals the similarities between the violence humans have wrought against other humans, and our treament of non-human animals. It is brief (128 pages) but is a chilling testament, well illustrated with photos and sketches, and altough a small book it speaks volumes to the pain and suffering we have created as a result of so-called human progress.
Majorie Spiegal is a documentary photographer and author of several books. Her fields of study include biology, philosophy, environmental studies, history, nutrition and medicine. In 1989, she founded IDEA (Institute for Development of Earth Awareness), a non-profit educational organisation whose mission synthesizes three areas of concern: environmental, human and animal issues.
In this startling book, Spiegal gives a voice to those who cannot speak for themselves, and points out the 'dreaded comparison' between the pain felt by abused human beings and the pain felt by abused non-human beings, recognising it as the same pain. Why is it unacceptable to treat humans 'like animals', but it is considered a proper manner in which to treat non-human animals? For some, this book my be too challenging to their most closly-held beliefs, but it is truly a consciousness-raising exercise. Most people would say they are against slavery, yet animal slavery is alive and well even in the most 'civilized' society. The author draws parallels, and the illustrations stunnily juxtapose those of captured black slaves and those of captured non-human animals, sometimes wearing the same sort of restraining equipment. There are illustrations of branding to calves and of slaves, the muzzling of dogs and of slaves, the auctioning of slaves and of non-human animals, and many other examples. Families were torn apart, just as calves are ripped from their mothers without even the chance of a lick. There is undisputed evidence of non-human animals sufering the intolerable pain of mourning. In today's factory farmong, chicks never see a hen, cows and sows are kept in stalls, with their young taken from them almost immediately after birth.
The author covers many related subjects, including the language of oppression, transportation, experimentation, food production, hunting, profits and power. A term like 'breaking a horse'- which really does man breaking the spirit of the horse, to tame just as 'uppity' slaves were tamed. Photos of sheep and cattle being transported, are shown with sketches of slave ships; 15 million slaves survived some thirty or forty million transported to the West, and there is a ghastly mortality rate today for cattle and sheep transported from Australia to the East. Hunting continues around the world, with th UK House of Lords in March this year voting to continue hunting with hounds. In the US the object of desire for many hunters is to get a buck's head complete with antlers, stuffed and hung over the fireplace. Many travellers today search for items such as a gorilla's hand for a paper-weight, exotic skins and other tropies, and so many other creatures including whales being hunted. As segregation of blacks was a means for committee to conceal a disturbing reality from the wider society, so today's secrecy protects a profitable but disgusting cruelty to non-human beings. What goes on in laboratories, in abbatoirs, in factory farm? Nowadays in place of cows, sheep, pigs and chickens living peaceably on farms, we see long sheds. Those in power used to say that if slavery were ended, the economics of society would collapse, but it didn't. Today's society that relies very heavily on the exploitation of animals, says the same sort of thing. But the author doesn't give up hope; she urges on her readers to the realization that the non-human we enslave and treat as things, are alive, and hopes that this realization will change our actions. This book is one that you will keep referring to, and it does have a comphrehensive index. Jeffrey Masson, author of When Elephants Weep, said The Dreaded Comparison is a wonderful book, and he urged everyone to read it. So do I.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Every human MUST read this - July 11, 2002

By A Customer

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book compares human and animal slavery in a way you can never ever forget. The words and pictures are unforgettable. You will feel the feelings of those humans and those animals who are used (and being used now) as slaves.

Read this book, and change your life! (it really helps) Many thanks to Amazon.com for recommending this book to me...

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential Reading June 18, 2000

By Dr. Yale S. Wishnick

Format:Paperback

Marjorie Spiegel has captured the essence of violence - domination and control. She presents an accurate portrayal and case that violence towards non-human animals holds the key and ultimate solution to the creation of a violencefree society. Her ideas and images run deep and should be required reading in our schools and homes. This brief, but to the point manuscript speaks volumes to the pain and suffering we have created as a result of so called human progress.