Guilty Pigs: The Weird and Wonderful History of Animal Law

An illuminating and entertaining history of the law’s treatment of animals

Trespassing bees, murderous zebras, reasonable cows ... Ever since Biblical times, animals have been clashing with human laws.

What to do with animals that injure or kill people, in particular, has long troubled humans. In medieval Europe, ‘killer’ animals – horses, cattle and most often pigs, which were notorious for eating young children – were put on trial. Even in the early twentieth century, circus elephants w...