ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the methods of animal–human history, first of all in response to suggestions that animal–human history is in the end not wholly compatible with an 'animal turn' that has turned decisively against anthropocentrism. It discusses the 'mainstreaming' of animal studies, including the rise of animal–human history, has been succeeded by a self-consciously 'critical' animal studies movement that views such academic normalisation as nothing but complicity and collaboration with anthropocentric reason and unrelenting animal exploitation. Proclaiming the 'triumph of animal history' reminds only of George W. Bush's infamous May 2003 'Mission Accomplished' speech on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, marking the end of 'major combat operations' in Iraq. Animal history challenges peopleto be conversant with the sciences–ethology, ecology, animal welfare science, zoology, comparative psychology, veterinary medicine–to track animal agency in historical sources.
