Book excerpt: Man is the Cruelest Animal features four main themes and essays on the human-animal link: History, Cruelty, Activism and Perspectives. Each theme is comprised of four peer-reviewed essays. In History, the centuries-old animal protection societies that preceded the modern animal rights movement of the 1970s are described. Cruelty highlights what drives animal activist campaigns, especially practices involving the (ab)use of animals in food production, research, entertainment and hunting. Activism analyses the strategies—persuasion, protest, non-cooperation and interference—and the associated tactics of animal activists in the USA, the UK and Australia. Perspectives identifies some of the conflicts involving counter movements against the theory and practice of animal rights and the prospect of achieving common cause in resolving the worst features of human-animal interactions. The concluding section of the book is in two parts: Part 1 focuses on Pandemics and Life Chances, a topic that is of obvious relevance in the current era, while Part 2 features an annotated guide to recommended reading on the four main themes covered in the book.