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Rating: 
Summary: A Good Overview
Review: For those who are interested in a general overview of the controversy and politics over vivisection, Rudacille's book is pretty good. Surely the book does not profess to change your mind on this issue, but it is hard to read through the book without recognizing where the author stands. I find it to be a problem for those who may have only recently considered this issue. This book really does not provide much moral discussion for the reader to weigh the arguments, I think that many people who may not be versed in the moral issues may simply grow to adopt the author's position after reading the book, which is: "Vivisection is a necessary evil. We definitely should continue using animals, but we certainly should make it as less evil as possible." I'm not sure if writing the book with this slant is appropriate for a book that professes to provide a historical analysis (surely I recognize that many historical works are written with slants). I think it would be a much more valuable work if it paid more attention to and presented the philosophical/moral debates in a historical perspective. However don't get me wrong, I think people who are interested in vivisection should definitely get this book for it provides many insights that I believe to be quite interesting.
Rating:
Summary: the scalpel rules
Review: Here's a book that at first glance showed great promise in delivering an objective, unbiased history of animal research versus the animal protection movement. The complimentary blurb by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas and the Humane Society representative on the back cover convinced me to buy it. But the more I read, the more I realized that this author has an agenda, and that is to convince readers that animal experimentation is necessary for the advancement of knowledge and the benefit of humans; that science is making great strides in treating lab animals more humanely and using less of them through the cutesily named "Three R's" (which she wrongly attributes not to the considerable efforts of animal rights groups but to the scientists themselves, who claim they're changing to non-animal models for practical, not ethical reasons); and that groups such as PETA and the ALF are making the situation worse, not better (as she puts it, ". . . the antics of PETA and its imitators seem to be eroding the once formidable support of Americans for animal advocacy.") That truth is that if it weren't for PETA and ALF and other groups, the mainstream wouldn't even be aware of institutionalized and corporate animal abuse. To add insult to injury, she also talks about a scientist who almost didn't become a scientist because of her ethical qualms about killing animals for research. But in the interests of her career, she forces herself to harden her emotions and ignore her scruples, and now she's apparently chopping up animal body parts with the best of 'em. This story is presented as a personal victory for the scientist. There's also an entire chapter called "Nazi Healing" that deals with the racism, devotion to natural health and a clean environment, eugenics, human experimentation, and antivivisection movement of 30s Germany, an apparent attempt by the author to relate that era to what's going on now, in our "postmodern" world (BTW, she uses the word "postmodern" ad nauseum). And she talks at length about the rumor that Hitler was a vegetarian, as if that fact alone would discredit vegetarianism and the animal advocacy movement. Coretta Scott King, Mahatma Gandhi, Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, and many others are/were also vegetarians. All sorts of people, good, bad, and in between, don't eat meat, for all kinds of reasons. Despite my serious reservations about this book, it does provide a good overview of the history of animal advocacy versus animal experimentation, and despite its heavy subject and obvious slant, is written in a compelling style that makes you want to read on. It is truly unfortunate that Ms. Rudacille could not keep her personal feelings out of it, or it would have been a more valuable resource.
Rating:
Summary: Beautifully written but strays from the topic
Review: The prose in this book makes it a pleasure to read. Ms. Rudacille tells fasinating stories in illustrating her subject. I am not sure when I last read such a beautifully written book. I am jealous of her writing skills! Unfortunately, I have two complaints. First, Ms. Rudicille buys completely in to the fantasy perpetuated by the scientific establishment that animal research has benefited mankind. Since she is attempting to write a balanced story of the pro and anti-vivesection movements, I would have liked for her not to have so readily accepted the standard dogma promoted by those who earn their livings from animal experimentation that we would all be dead were it not for the marvels discovered by injecting dogs, cats, rats, chimps, etc with all nature of compounds. Even a limited review of the scientific literature rapidly illustrates the fallacies of the animal experimentation lobby. Secondly, about two thirds of the way through the book, the author leaves her subject and addresses post modernistic philopsphy. I kept waiting for her to bring it back to the title topic, that is the history of animal experimentation, but she never tied it together to my satifaction. Jean Greek, DVM Co-author of Sacred Cows and Golden Geese
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