Book Review- Strategic Action for Animals by Melanie Joy

Review by Kedar Deshpande
Views presented here do not necessarily reflect those of CAA

Melanie Joy's "Strategic Action for Animals" covers a range of issues in the animal rights movement from starting an organization to crafting a mission to creating awareness around psychological warning signs in individual and group dynamics.

The book makes an admirable attempt at synthesizing a vast array of topics but ultimately the reader is left with the feeling that the book is taking on too much, with not enough attention devoted to each issue it raises.

At times the book's focus is either too narrow or tangential for new activists, and its details are too broad and shallow for the experienced. Also, the book is ultimately too short to use as a solid reference point, though parts of it could potentially serve as a blueprint for a larger book about animal activism.

Strategic Action for Animals provides only some useful insight and information about how to build campaigns or organizations, or how to effectively communicate animal-related issues, taking into account the psychology of meat-eaters; however, much of this information is presented at a 30,000 foot altitude, and serves only as an executive summary, rather than a full analysis. Also, it would have been welcome for the book to offer more of the critical nuts and bolts details of running an organization or creating campaigns, and at least two chapters read more as abstract psychological tracts than useful activist information.

One gets the notion that Joy's psychology background dominates her animal activism background and she is writing about what she knows best, rather than what the reader is expecting to learn. As such, the title of this book is somewhat misleading, as its overall focus is geared toward the psychology of group dynamics and how to keep individuals and organizations healthy and stable in the long-run.

And while some of the psychological information about organizational structures and problematic behaviors she provides is definitely useful for activists of any cause, it is not properly integrated into the book. For example, Joy's research into the defense mechanisms that meat-eaters employ to avoid guilt is fascinating, but would be more effectively absorbed for the reader if she tied that research to how to create successful campaigns. Instead, the two subjects, which are intimately intertwined, are divorced from each other, and both come across as abstract, vague and unhelpful.

While Joy does reference two different, highly-focused campaigns on occasion (one to ban cat vivisection, and another to ban greyhound racing), she does so sparingly, robbing the reader and activist of a more thorough grounding in the pitfalls and potentials of direct activism. Deep analysis of at least three or four different campaigns, waged by organizations with different goals and different styles (such as PETA and HSUS), would improve the book considerably.

Ultimately Strategic Action for Animals, while written with good intentions, is too vague and short to be an effective introduction for new activists or old. However, it does have some interesting points and sections which could help groups interested in how to create effective psychological campaigns.

Strategic Action for Animals, Lantern Books, New York, 2008