Animals in War manuscript submitted
Close up of the frieze on the Animals in War Memorial in Park Lane
Having gratefully received comments from various friends and colleagues I have now re-written the entire first (sic) draft of my book on the animal-human relationship on the Home Front in Britain during the Second World War. I think that the argument is now much sharper and the changing relationship between humans and companion animals during the war, due to shared material circumstances, is foregrounded more sharply.
Inevitably much of the content of the introduction has now been included in the conclusion. This includes discussion of the Animals in War memorial that I have written about elsewhere but which continues to interest me because of the absences in text and imagery. The sculpted frieze implies that war is something that almost happens in “a far away country between people of whom we know nothing”. Certainly there is no reference to animals who continue to be experimented upon at Porton Down nor, of course, to the thousands of companion animals killed by the “allies” in the first week of September.
I have now sent off the totally re-written second (sic) draft to my publisher, the University of Chicago Press, and await feedback with interest.
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