Is hunting a bygone activity, out of touch with modern life; or is it valuable as an escape from it? Does hunting promote violence, not just to animals, but to humans as well? Is hunting, with its connection to the land and frontier experience, a heritage worth preserving? These questions form the foundations for discussion in Killing Tradition: Inside Hunting and Animal Rights Controversies. Simon J. Bronner sorts through the issues and goes behind the headlines to examine the basis of this hotly-charged subject. Using case studies as evidence, Bronner looks at a topic at the center of modern cultural debate.

Simon J. Bronner is Distinguished University Professor of American Studies and Folklore and director of the Pennsylvania Center for Culture Studies at The Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg. He is the editor of the four-volume Encyclopedia of American Folklife, Manly Traditions: The Folk Roots of American Masculinities, Consuming Visions: Accumulation and Display of Goods in America, 1880-1920, and other volumes, and the author of several books, including Folk Nation: Folklore in the Creation of American Tradition, Grasping Things: Folk Material Culture and Mass Society in America, Following Tradition: Folklore in the Discourse of American Culture, and The Carver's Art: Crafting Meaning from Wood.