Abstract

Between the late Nineteenth century and the First World War, the cultural memory and the basic set of arguments of ethical vegetarianism, still evoked today by animal rights’ activists, crystalized into a solid narrative. In the British movement, whose most active figures – like Henry S. Salt, founder in 1891 of the Humanitarian League – were part of the broader socialist area, there was a constant tension between alternative political attitudes and goals, between reform and utopia. Crucial elements of this tension can be traced to the forerunners who inspired them and who belonged in particular to the period of the French Revolution.