The Modern Savage

"McWilliams has issued a powerful challenge to the 'compassionate omnivore' movement. The Modern Savage is a book that everyone concerned about food, animals and the environment should read."—Peter Singer, author of Animal Liberation and Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University

"James McWilliams ably demonstrates that we've often underestimated the mental lives of farm animals, and that we need to start taking their interests more seriously. He doesn't skirt tough issues nor does he take positions based on what may be popular at the time. Such a moral accounting would lead to a revolution in both how we produce food and what food we eat."—Paul Shapiro, vice president, The Humane Society of the United States

"James McWilliams accomplishes something at once simple and profound. He explains in plain, accessible, and highly readable language what follows if we reject factory farming as morally reprehensible animal abuse, as most of us do. First, if animals matter morally, then killing them in any context is always wrong when we have a vegan alternative. Second, consumers of "humane" or "sustainable" animal-based foods will be surprised to learn that animal suffering routinely attends local and small-scale animal farming. McWilliams tells a riveting story while building an unassailable argument for veganism as the answer to our well-justified revulsion towards industrialized animal agriculture."—Sherry F. Colb, Professor of Law, Cornell University, and author of Mind If I Order the Cheeseburger and Other Questions People Ask Vegans