 —  October – November 2013
S
CHOLARS have argued that the
domestication of animals for
food, labour, and tools of war has
advanced the development of human
society. But by comparing practices of ani-
mal exploitation for food and resources in
different societies over time, David A Nibert
reaches a strikingly different conclusion.
He implores humanity to shift to a vegan, or
plant-based diet.
Nibert maintains: “The emergence and
continued practice of capturing, controlling,
and genetically manipulating other animals
for human use violates the sanctity of life
of the sentient beings involved”. He tees up
a neologism, ‘domesecration’, and deploys
it throughout the book, arguing that “their
minds and bodies are desecrated to facilitate
the exploitation: it can be said that they have
been domesecrated”.
He traces an upsurge in human violence
to the practice of stalking and killing animals
which “began no earlier than ninety thou-
sand years ago – and probably much later”,
but fails to acknowledge that this was con-
nected to the expansion of humanity into
northern latitudes where edible plants were
not available throughout the year, often mak-
ing hunting a necessity for survival.
His basic thesis is that ‘domesecration’
has generated conflict between human socie-
ties because the amount of land required for
raising animals for human consumption is
far greater than that required to grow crops
for direct human consumption. He empha-
sises how “domesecrated” animals act as
vectors for zoonotic diseases, and displace
countless free-living animals.
As an abolitionist he does not envision
any possible way humans could exploit
animals in symbiosis with one another and
their environment.
He begins his account in  at Riazan
near Moscow as the Golden Horde led by
Batu Khan lays the city to siege. Nibert links
the cruelty of those Mongols to their treat-
ment of animals and shows their reliance on
them as weapons of war and mobile sources
of food. Conquest, in turn, was fuelled by
a need for more grazing land. They terror-
ised Eastern Europe and China which saw its
population drop from  million in 
to  million in , laying waste socie-
ties engaged primarily in crop cultivation.
Veganism makes
us human
Review by Frank Armstrong
CULTURE FOOD
Animal Domestication & human
violence: Domescration, Capitalism
and Global Conict
David A Nibert
Columbia University Press,
New York, 2013