Daniel E. Bender is the Canada Research Chair in Global Culture and Professor of History at the University of Toronto.
What emerges is a story of adaptation and survival that exposes the
modern zoo as ‘a third nature’…Those who are ethically opposed to
zoos will find plenty here to strengthen their case. But with zoos’
power of reinvention, it seems likely that this ‘third nature’ will
be with us for some time.
*Nature*
A fascinating history lesson on zoos in the USA, from their
beginnings at the end of the nineteenth century through to the
1970s…Each chapter of The Animal Game is riveting and meticulously
evidenced…The reason why Bender’s book shines is not only his
philosophical musings, but his intricate weaving of the histories
of ordinary and extraordinary people and animals that have played a
documented part in the narratives of U.S. zoos.
*LSE Review of Books*
[The Animal Game] makes some significant contributions to the field
by changing the nature of the discussion about animal traders in
Africa in the 1920s and 1930s, and by enriching our understanding
of labor relations in the zoo, particularly in the 1970s. Both are
important additions to zoo history.
*American Historical Review*
Bender provides a high-level history of urban zoos in the
20th-century U.S. Sourced from the libraries and archives of
several zoos, this book and its supplemental digital content shine
a light on zoo history that was previously kept private.
*Choice*
A fascinating transnational labor, social, and cultural history of
the American zoo. Bender brilliantly shows us how workers around
the world participated in the creation of a popular American
institution, including merchants in Singapore who sold caged
animals to dealers, East African workers who captured wild animals
under horrific conditions, and the wives of self-styled ‘zoo men,’
who raised countless orphaned ‘zoo babies’ after World War II.
Well-written and impressively researched, The Animal Game is a
groundbreaking book.
*Janet Davis, author of The Gospel of Kindness: Animal Welfare
and the Making of Modern America*
This book could not be more timely. American zoos are contested
spaces today, caught between heated debates about conservation and
confinement. In seemingly effortless prose backed by impeccable
research, Bender shows us how today’s zoos came to be. After
reading this book, you’ll never go to the zoo in the same way
again.
*Jane Desmond, author of Displaying Death and Animating Life:
Human–Animal Relations in Art, Science, and Everyday Life*
This moving account of the animals that have come to populate zoos
ranges from hidden histories of empire, celebrity, and taxidermy to
consideration of the ways that institutions associated with
prisons, slums, and asylums might affect their inhabitants. Mixing
labor history across species lines with keen cultural analysis,
this is a story of enclosure that opens out in remarkable ways.
*Kristin Hoganson, author of Consumers’ Imperium: The Global
Production of American Domesticity*
In The Animal Game, Daniel Bender offers a fresh perspective on the
twentieth-century history of American zoos. His informative and
engaging account includes vivid portraits of human and nonhuman
actors, as it details the business, the politics, and the ethics of
the acquisition and display of living animals.
*Harriet Ritvo, author of Noble Cows and Hybrid Zebras: Essays
on Animals and History*
|
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
