I went vegan immediately after watching If Slaughterhouses Had Glass Walls (Everyone Would be Vegetarian) narrated by Paul McCartney, and sadly, made by PETA. I strongly dislike PETA and believe their objectification of women(1) and lack of logic in their advertising campaigns attests to their complete irrationality, sets back the animal rights movement by making vegans seem driven by emotion not logic, and reinforces the complete lack of empathy in our culture, that helps normalize our mistreatment of animals anyways (and minorities, the poor, those of different sexual orientation and gender expression, and women-- it all comes from the same impulse; so objectifying and exploiting any disempowered groups reinforces ALL EXPLOITATION, including of animals). However, even though I completely despise PETA and what it stands for (2), I could not ignore what I saw in that video and went vegan that day because I knew viscerally and immediately that inflicting that suffering was wrong-- and I stopped being able to separate the sanitized word "meat" from "tortured animal carcass". However, I did not have the language to describe what I had seen or the ability to logically explain why I could not morally defend eating animals after knowing what they go through. This book provided that, and has empowered me to (unlike PETA)rationally and persuasively explain why animals have the right not to be eaten, as well as extensive counter-arguments for most points. Reading this book will make you feel empowered, renew your sense of urgency in the cause of veganism, and give you the tools to make a difference in the lives of animals and in the environment by helping you convince others to make this their cause too. I highly recommend this book.
1)including launching a vegan "porn" site in which a woman during the "state of the union undress" strips while explaining animal rights, putting unclothed pregnant women in pens, using female nudity and weight loss rather than ethics or reason to point out that abuse of any sentient being is wrong.
2) The author, Gary Francione, has agreed on his website The Abolitionist Approach that PETA is actually working against the empowerment of animals and actively working towards the continued objectification and harm of women-- if you are a vegan, please support another animal rights organization. Supporting an organization that supports animal rights on the grounds that no sentient being has the right to be objectified (treated as only a use/devoid of empathy) and consumed, while reinforcing the definition of woman's values by her body, does the same thing to women... If you live your life by the principle of non-violence, the principle of empathy, please have some for other disempowered groups. All oppression comes from the same impulse to dominante, objectify, and exploit. Extinguish that impulse- extinguish ad campaigns like PETA's. To not do so is morally inconsistent, wrong, and works against the interest of any and all social activism, whether it be anti- animal abuse, anti-sexism, anti-racism, anti-homophobia, etc; everything is interconnected.