Empty Cages: Facing the Challenge of Animal Rights

Described by Jeffrey Masson as 'the single best introduction to animal rights ever written, Tom Regan's EMPTY CAGES stands as an essential guide to the ongoing animal rights debate. In a style at once simple and elegant, Regan dispels the negative image of animal rights advocates as portrayed by the mass media, unmasks the fraudulent rhetoric of 'humane treatment' favored by animal exploiters in both familiar and less well-documented contexts, and explains why existing laws function to legitimize institutional cruelty. In so doing, Regan invites readers to join the struggle for animal rights—one person at a time, one step at a time. Written by the leading philosophical spokesperson for animal rights, Tom Regan's shocking exposé of animal abuse makes an essential and lasting contribution to how animal rights is viewed in the United States and around the world.

'Tom Regan delivers a searing indictment of the way we treat animals in the world we have made for ourselves, and presents a trenchant case that animals have or should have rights in the same way that human beings have.'—J. M. Coetzee, winner of the 2003 Nobel Prize for Literature

'Every so often a book is written that is destined to change the way people think. Tom Regan has written just such a book. EMPTY CAGES is compelling because it is logical, rational, and written in an elegantly simple style. Please buy this book, read it, and tell your friends about it. Everyone needs a copy on their bookshelf.'—Jane Goodall

'Tom Regan's EMPTY CAGES is a powerful call for justice on one of the most urgent issues human society faces. Calmly, lucidly, he asks readers to confront the miserable conditions we have inflicted on animals, leaving us with three choices: find a flaw in the argument, work for change, or throw the book away and try to forget it. The indelible force of Regan's argument makes the third course very difficult.'—Martha C. Nussbaum, University of Chicago