Regarding Animals (Animals, Culture and Society)

What is it about Western society, ask the authors, that makes it possible for people to express great affection for animals as sentient creatures and simultaneously turn a blind eye to the most callous behavior toward them? Animals are sold as expensive commodities, used as food and clothing, killed as vermin and hunted for sport. But they also are treated as members of the family, used as the cause celebre of social movements, and made the subject of art, film and poetry. In this book, the people who work with the animals and live through them talk to the authors about the strategies they adopt to cope with the stress of the job.