Review "We have been waiting for a book like this. Gillespie grapples with how the dairy industry uses cows as well as the challenge of researching that very thing. Her writing is pitch perfect, richly detailed, and riveting. The Cow with Ear Tag #1389 vividly demonstrates the transformative power of scholarship to bear witness."--Carol J. Adams "author of The Sexual Politics of Meat ""Simultaneously engaging, provocative, rigorous, and heartfelt, The Cow with Ear Tag #1389 demystifies the doublethink that dazes decent people into complicity with callous cruelty. Let Gillespie be your tour guide to the dairy farm, state fair, and petting zoo, and you might find yourself exploring the backroads of your own mind."--pattrice jones "author of The Oxen at the Intersection ""Gillespie's stories and writing bring this book to life. We can feel the cows breathe and smell the grass as she unlocks the intricate relationship we have with these gentle animals. Her ability to explain complex issues in simple terms makes this an important read--especially for those who want to help foster compassion and understanding."--lauren Ornelas "founder and executive director of Food Empowerment Project ""In a gripping narrative, Gillespie weaves together an informative discussion of the complexities of the dairy industry with heart-wrenching reflections on the impact of this commodification process on animals. She reveals alternative relationships of care that can help us look more closely, see better, and hopefully work toward changing ourselves and other animals."--Lori Gruen "author of Entangled Empathy ""Positioning her work among such investigative classics as Upton Sinclair's The Jungle and Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation, Gillespie uses scholarly methods to bring to light the often hidden side of what it takes to produce such foods as cheese and ice cream. . . .Interviews with dairy farmers and 4-H participants give fascinating insight into the emotional toll sometimes exacted on humans. . .Gillespie also vividly describes the deleterious effects of long-term dairy production on the animals themselves, as demonstrated by the titular cow. . .She succeeds in ensuring her readers will never look at a glass of milk in quite the same way again."--Publishers Weekly"The Cow with Ear Tag #1389 addresses a critical issue whose time for discussion has not only come but is in fact long overdue. Gillespie deftly excavates and narrates the singular moments of the dairy animals she encounters, and a very real story of the personalized cows emerges."--Yamini Narayanan "Deakin University ""What price a glass of milk? In this trenchant examination of the dairy industry, animal-studies researcher Kathryn Gillespie investigates its workings, wastefulness, and impacts on the environment. . .Gillespie's central focus, however, is the effect on the cows, bulls and calves involved, before their inevitable slaughter. Her careful field research in auction yards and slaughterhouses shows how commodification of animals too often leads to severe, and disturbing, health and welfare issues."--Nature"I'm equal parts haunted and motivated by The Cow with Ear Tag #1389. . .This hard-hitting book explores, with thoughtful-yet-unapologetic precision, the life cycle of individual animals--such as '#1389'--transporting rapt readers to auction yards and slaughterhouses, and paving the way for vital new inroads to discuss what it means to be truly empathetic."--VegNews"How to help in a system that prizes profit over compassion is one of the main concerns in the book. . .We Americans have decided that some animals-- .g., cats, dogs, hamsters, parrots--are companions and that others--e.g., cows, pigs, goats, lobsters--are dinner. We argue over the ethics of those choices, but Gillespie raises a more fundamental question: What do we owe any animal, including the ones from which we take milk? Her answer as implied in The Cow with Ear Tag #1389 is that we should not make them suffer."--Washington Independent Review of Books"Gillespie describes the cultural picture of dairy in the US by analyzing print and online resources from various points on dairy's commodity chain: academic papers on animal agriculture, agricultural law, advertisements. These contextualize the book's most immediately arresting passages . . .Gillespie also situates dairy against a backdrop of societal anxieties about domesticity, hygiene and safety. . .Her book draws from her discussions with dairy industry employees who did agree to speak to her but, at the same time, she is most keen to pay attention to animals' biographies, arguing that these challenge capitalism's depersonalizing logic."--Times Literary Supplement About the Author Kathryn Gillespie is coeditor of Critical Animal Geographies and Economies of Death.
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