I use this book as the textbook for the animal studies class I teach both at UMass Lowell and at the Tufts Experimental College (wikis: ikesharpless.pbworks.com / animalethics.pbworks.com). There are a couple of other readers in the field, but I think this one does the best job of providing disciplinary breadth and 'balance' (i.e., unlike some of the other readers I've sampled, this one does not toe the animal rights party line, to the extent that there is such a thing). It covers ethics, cognition, primates & cetaceans, animals as food, wild animals, animals as companions, animals in biomedical research and biotechnology, and animal law - and each section has at least one 'pro' and one 'con': Regan & Cohen, Dennett & Bekoff, DeGrazia & the Animal Ag Alliance, and so on. My only real gripes are that the binding is kind of shoddy, the font is too small, and there could be more in the way of introducing students to critical animal theory. All in all, I recommend it as a reader.