Fear Factories

<p><em>Fear Factories: Arguments about Innocent Creatures and Merciless People</em> searches for answers to questions that people of good will have always asked about the treatment of animals. The book shines a light on practices and industries that leave us uneasy when we hear about them because they are so plainly inconsistent with the just and compassionate societies we aspire to be.</p><p> </p><p>With fresh and compelling arguments in a style the late Christopher Hitchens described as beautiful and witty prose former presidential speechwriter Matthew Scully asks us to look clearly at often horrific abuses in animal agriculture blood sport scientific research and other industries using reasoned moral judgment to advance an ethic of love and respect for our fellow creatures.</p><p> </p><p>The book collects three decades of published writings -- from <em>The Atlantic</em> the <em>New York Times</em> the <em>Wall Street Journal</em> <em>National Review</em> and elsewhere -- as a sequel to Scully's 2002 <em>Dominion: The Power of Man the Suffering of Animals and the Call to Mercy</em> a work many readers have called life-changing. <em>Dominion</em> wrote <em>New York Times</em> reviewer Natalie Angier is a horrible wonderful important book. . . . [A] beautiful book rich with thought and a balm to the scared lonely animal in us all.</p><p> </p><p>Because animals are all so powerless before us as Scully writes in a preface to <em>Fear Factories</em> they are a test of conscience for us all. Far from being some minor peripheral ethical dispute we can leave to the philosophers or worry about some other time the way we treat animals is a crucial urgent defining issue for humanity. </p>