Brutal reasoning : animals, rationality, and humanity in early modern England /

Fudge (literary and cultural studies, Middlesex Univ., UK) has emerged as a leading authority on the place of animals in the intellectual history of the early modern period. Building on her analysis in Perceiving Animals: Humans and Beasts in Early Modern English Culture (2000), and on the material in her edited volume Renaissance Beasts: Of Animals, Humans and Other Wonderful Creatures (CH, Sep'04, 42-0383), the present study concentrates on animal rationality in the early modern period as a way of probing early thinking on the divide between humans and animals. In some of the most compelling parts of the book, Fudge extends her analysis to examine debates concerning the rationality of women, children, and non-Anglos; throughout the book she draws significant parallels to recent debates about animals. As is true of her previous work, this volume is eclectic and wide-ranging; although it classes as philosophical anthropology, in discussing a range of texts Fudge engages with history, literary theory, philosophy, and legal studies, among other disciplines. Engagingly written, meticulously researched, and thought-provoking throughout, Fudge's latest contribution makes an extraordinarily valuable contribution to a wide range of disciplines. Summing Up: Essential. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty. R. D. Morrison Morehead State University