Savages and Beasts: The Birth of the Modern Zoo (Animals History Culture)

About this book

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 worlds 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 animalshumanely Hagenbeck advertisedfor 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 Hagenbecks 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.