An American Trilogy

by Wise, Steven M.

• ISBN13: 9780306814754
• ISBN10: 0306814757
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-03-23
• Publisher: Da Capo Pr

Summary

The Cape Fear River runs through Bladen County, North Carolina, population 33,000. On its western bank, in the town of Tar Heel, sits the largest slaughterhouse in the world. Deep below the slaughterhouse, one may find the arrowheads of Siouan-speaking peoples who roamed there for a millennium. Nearer the surface is evidence of slaves who labored there for a century. And now, the slaughterhouse kills the population of Bladen County, in hogs, every day.In this remarkable account, Wise traces the history of today's deadly harvest. From the colonies to the slave trade, from the artificial conception and unrecorded death of one single pig to the surreal science of the pork industrywhose workers continue the centuries of oppressionhe unveils a portrait of this nation through the lives of its most vulnerable. His explorations ultimately lead to hope from a most unlikely source: the Baptist clergy, a voice in this wilderness proclaiming a new view of creation.

Author Biography

Steven M. Wise, J.D., has practiced animal law for over twenty years and has taught at the Harvard, Vermont, and John Marshall law schools. He is President of the Center for the Expansion of Fundamental Rights, which he founded in 1995. The author of Rattling the Cage, praised by Cass Sunstein as "an impassioned, fascinating, and in many ways startling book" (New York Times Book Review), and Drawing the Line, which Nature called "provocative and disturbing," he has been profiled nationally by such publications as the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Time magazine.

Table of Contents

Prologue	p. ix
Tar Heel Foundations	p. 1
Carolina Magic	p. 11
The Genesis Disaster for Native Americans	p. 23
The Genesis Disaster for Black Slaves	p. 41
Wilbur	p. 57
The Smell of Money	p. 75
River of Death	p. 99
The World Pork Expo	p. 123
A Pork Industry Visionary	p. 145
The Genesis Disaster for Animals	p. 173
"A Newfound Passion"	p. 193
Acknowledgments	p. 229
Notes	p. 233
Index	p. 273
About the Author	p. 291
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