Rothfels Savages and Beasts

The Birth of the Modern Zoo
Erscheinungsjahr 2008
ISBN: 978-0-8018-9809-9
Verlag: Johns Hopkins University Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 0 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 235 mm

Reihe: Animals, History, Culture

To modern sensibilities, nineteenth-century zoos often seem to be unnatural places where animals led miserable lives in cramped, wrought-iron cages. Today zoo animals, in at least the better zoos, wander in open spaces that resemble natural habitats and are enclosed, not by bars, but by moats, cliffs, and other landscape features. In Savages and Beasts, Nigel Rothfels traces the origins of the modern zoo to the efforts of the German animal entrepreneur Carl Hagenbeck.

By the late nineteenth century, Hagenbeck had emerged as the world's undisputed leader in the capture and transport of exotic animals. His business included procuring and exhibiting indigenous peoples in highly profitable spectacles throughout Europe and training exotic animals—humanely, Hagenbeck advertised—for circuses around the world. When in 1907 the Hagenbeck Animal Park opened in a village near Hamburg, Germany, Hagenbeck brought together all his business interests in a revolutionary zoological park. He moved wild animals out of their cages and into "natural landscapes" alongside "primitive" peoples from Africa, Asia, the Americas, and the islands of the Pacific. Hagenbeck had invented a new way of imagining captivity: the animals and people on exhibit appeared to be living in the wilds of their native lands.

By looking at Hagenbeck's multiple enterprises, Savages and Beasts demonstrates how seemingly enlightened ideas about the role of zoos and the nature of animal captivity developed within the essentially tawdry business of placing exotic creatures on public display. Rothfels provides both fascinating reading and much-needed historical perspective on the nature of our relationship with the animal kingdom.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Rothfels, Nigel

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte
• Naturwissenschaften Biowissenschaften Tierkunde / Zoologie
• Naturwissenschaften Biowissenschaften Biowissenschaften Biowissenschaften, Biologie: Sachbuch, Naturführer
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften: Allgemeines Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften, Formalen Wissenschaften & Technik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Entering the Gates
Chapter 1: Gardens of History
Chapter 2: Catching Animals
Chapter 3: "Fabulous Animals": Showing People
Chapter 4: Paradise
Conclusion: When Animals Speak
Notes
A Note on Sources
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Rothfels, Nigel
Nigel Rothfels is a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. He is the author of Elephant Trails: A History of Animals and Cultures and the editor of Representing Animals.

Nigel Rothfels received his Ph.D. in history from Harvard University and is director of the Office of Undergraduate Research at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He is the editor of Representing Animals.