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Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust by Charles Patterson, Paperback, 6" x 9"
Lantern Books, One Union Square West, Suite 201, New York, NY 10003, USA. E-mail:eternaltr@earthlink.net: Publication Date 2002. xvi+296 pages, ISBN 1-930051-99-9. Price $20.00
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(Editor's Note: This is the only review we received from the Continent of South America.)
Time has passed by since I finished reading Charles Patterson's book Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust. It is a great book that catches the reader's attention right from the beginning. It makes you think and consider the guiding principles in life and even challenges defiantly some of them. This book teaches you about human nature, cruelty, tolerance, love, and hatred, as well as it addresses other touchy subjects at ease. The author's thesis: non-human animals are suffering an eternal holocaust in the hands of our modern and civilized society; as well as its historical frame and theoretical principles, are presented in a coherent and convincing way. It would have seemed that a book addressing these topics would be difficult to read, but Charles Patterson found the right balance to make it perfect. Eternal Treblinka is organized in three parts.
In 'A Fundamental Debacle,' the author acquaints the reader with some basic concepts along a historical background. The first is the notion that humans have artificially separated animals from them, ranking animals as much lower subhuman entities. Once this division was established, humans from different cultures, eras, and religions found it acceptable to hunt, keep, kill, and eat animals. Regarding humans alone, the author shows us how different groups have always disparaged their enemies using animal epithets. Discrimination among populations, leading to racism, has been just an extension of the same thought, which eventually was validated 'scientifically' in the mid-1800s. Logical consequences of this philosophy are familiar to all of us: Colonization, slavery, war, holocaust.
..
I recommend this book to be read not just by the lay reader, but also by scholars from both the anthropological as well as the biomedical sciences. Cultural
anthropologists and historians will benefit from the wealth of well-researched primary information that this book contains. Furthermore, the quotations along the book,
as well as the notes and bibliography sections are very interesting and comprehensive.
...
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In its second part, 'Master Species, Master Race,' the book focuses on how some of the terrible methods of mass extermination applied to Jews by the Nazis could be tracked down to American industrialized slaughterhouses. Moreover, the book presents revealing evidence of the direct links between Third Reich leaders and some American advocates of eugenics, mass sterilization, and anti-Semitism, and euthanasia. In fact, the Nazis considered some of them, including Henry Ford, to be their inspiration.
The rationale of the book implies that carnivorous people keep the machinery of mass killing of animals running, so at least in a way, the theoretical frame of the Jew holocaust is 'alive and kicking' around the world. In this last part of the book, 'Holocaust Echoes,' the author paves the road to a solution. He does so as quoting moving first-hand testimonies from the Jewish holocaust witnesses. The civilized world would be really worth that adjective if more people embraced vegetarianism, or even better, veganism. People who accepted that all breathing creatures are their peers would stop mistreating them, killing them, or eating them. In consequence, veganism could teach us to accept other humans better, reducing intolerance, hatred, wars, and even the risk of future holocausts.
I recommend this book to be read not just by the lay reader, but also by scholars from both the anthropological as well as the biomedical sciences. Cultural anthropologists and historians will benefit from the wealth of well-researched primary information that this book contains. Furthermore, the quotations along the book, as well as the notes and bibliography sections are very interesting and comprehensive. On the other hand, medical doctors and biologists could learn some arguments that support the growing vegetarian movement. Nevertheless, I would like to prevent this latter group of readers that they would not find references to any biological basis or scientific discussion on the vegetarian movement. Moreover, I would like the reader of this book review to be aware of my personal bias as an anthropologist and paleopathologist.
Enjoy reading Eternal Treblinka!
-Guido P. Lombardi
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-Guido P. Lombardi Dr. Guido P. Lombardi is a world famous anthropologist, paleopathologist, historian and mummy expert from Peru. He is an avid reader and reviewer of books. Several of his erudite pieces have been published in our sister journal. He can be contacted at guido_lombardi@hotmail.com. |
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