The Bond: Our Kinship with Animals, Our Call to Defend Them

By Wayne Pacelle

“If the animals knew about this book they would, without doubt, confer on Wayne Pacelle, their highest honor.”
—Jane Goodall

“The Bond is the best overall book on animals I have ever read. Brilliant and moving.”
—John Mackey, CEO and Co-founder of Whole Foods Market

“The Bond is at once heart-breaking and heart-warming. No animal escapes Wayne Pacelle’s attention; nor should his book escape any human animal’s attention.”
—Alexandra Horowitz, New York Times Bestselling Author of Inside of a Dog

The president and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States, the world’s largest animal protection organization, Wayne Pacelle brings us The Bond, a heartfelt, eye-opening exploration of the special bond between animals and humans. With the poignant insight of Animals Make Us Human and the shocking reality of Fast Food Nation—filled with history, valuable insights, and fascinating stories of the author’s experience in the field—The Bond is an important investigation into all the ways we can repair our broken bond with the animal kingdom and a thrilling chronicle of one man’s extraordinary contribution to that effort.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Apr 5, 2011
• ISBN: 9780062079015

Wayne Pacelle

As president and CEO of The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), Wayne Pacelle leads the largest and most effective animal protection organization and one of the most dominant, high-impact non-profit groups of any kind. Placing special emphasis on transforming public policies and corporate behavior, he has been a primary strategist in securing the enactment of hundreds of state and federal animal-protection laws and helped drive reforms adopted by many of America’s biggest for-profit companies.  He’s been named an “Executive of the Year” by The Non-Profit Times; a contributor to influential newspapers and magazines, including Foreign Affairs; and author of the New York Times bestseller The Bond: Our Kindship with Animals, Our Call to Defend Them. His blog, A Humane Nation, is published each weekday.  He received his B.A. in history and environmental studies from Yale University in 1987. Pacelle lives in Maryland with his wife Lisa Fletcher, a journalist, and their dog Lily and cat Zoe.

Reviews for The Bond

[sullywriter_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

If you are already knowledgable about and active in the animal welfare movement, there's not much in this book that will be news to you. This is, however, an excellent introduction and overview of animal welfare history and issues. A great title for high school library collections.

[reviewsfromtheheart · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

On the cover of the New York Times Bestseller, The Bond by Wayne Pacelle, depicts a young child hugging a dog in a field and immediately the readers thoughts are that this is a book about the bond we feel to our animal friends/pets but do not be deceived.Wayne Pacelle is the President and CEO for the Humane Society of the United States and author of this novel. In it, the reader is exposed to the practices that go on around the world in regards to the treatment of animals, from puppy mills, slaughterhouses that produce our meat products, dog fighting and other animal blood sports such as hunting, National Park malpractices, science labs, fur industry businesses, and reckless breeding practices. The stories contained in this book are not for the faint of heart and likely to produce quite a few vegetarians after reading this book.This book takes cruelty to animals to a whole new level exposing about every single possibility you can think of. This is definitely a pro-life book at the protection against animals everywhere and a definite must read if you have no idea of what goes on when it comes to anything to do with animals and animal rights. I'm sure you've all heard of one animal protection group at one time or another and this book takes a great majority of those situations and compiles them into one concise book.I received this book compliments of William Morrow, a division of Harper Collins Publishers for my honest review and honestly believed this to be a book about the bond we share with our animal friends. Even so, looking at it in its entirety, as a reader who may be a bit naive on the subject of the practices of some forms of animal cruelty, this was an eye opener. The one thing I did love is a chapter devoted to things you can do to lend a hand to preventing animal cruelty and loads of tips and websites to check into. I highly recommend this book to readers who are against animal cruelty and for anyone wanting to know more into what goes on when it comes to the care and uses of our animal friends. For me, as a Christian, I personally feel an obligation to care for our animals as the stewards of the Earth that God has placed in our hands. For that reason I rate this book a 4 out of 5 stars.

[darcia_10 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book covers every aspect of our relationship with animals. We go back in time to the early origins of our bond with animals and learn how our relationships evolved. We journey from factory farms to loving farmers, from those who profit from dogfights to those who dedicate their lives to saving those same dogs. Wayne Pacelle touches on the most horrific, as well as the best, of our interaction and treatment of the animals whose world we share. The politics behind our laws and the power of the lobbyists whose clients profit from all forms of animal abuse is staggering. For those already familiar with these stories, this book is a important reminder. For others, this book will be a stark awakening. For all, this is a heartfelt plea for those whose voices go unheard. ** I received this book as an early review copy from HarperCollins through NetGalley. **