Animal Resistance in the Global Capitalist Era (The Animal Turn) Hardcover – December 1, 2020

We often hear humans refer to other animals (as well as other humans) as “voiceless.” Many, especially “domesticated” animals are seen as near-objects with little will or power of their own, easily dominated and subjugated. Colling has written this important book as a collection of narratives in which various individual nonhuman animals fight against their own oppression. Colling rejects this "voiceless" claim and urges the reader to rethink the human/nonhuman animal bifurcation."To genuinely listen to animals' voices requires being mindful of (and trying to dissolve) the asymmetrical power structures in animal-human relationships." She asks us to decenter the human animal in our own minds.Animal Rights advocates often fall under the same spells as the rest of society, and take on a savior mentality. Being a faithful ally to nonhumans requires that we continually let go of any presupposed superiority to them and that we work hard to understand their unique languages. Colling says, “Animals are communicating through their resistance.” Exploring the stories shared in this book is one step towards apprehending the ideal of “liberty and justice for all.”

Us on the Left commonly reminisce and glorify the individual and collective forms of resistance to tyranny in the past and present. When it comes to nonhuman animals, however, most of us don’t see their actions as forms of resistance.Sarat Colling wrote this amazing book to rectify our conscious and unconscious dismissals of how nonhuman animals and their histories are infinite in the tactics and instances of resistance to human supremacy, domination, and brutality. The Left, without acknowledging and acting on the knowledge from books like this, will never be intellectually or morally coherent in our pursuit for total liberation.