Zoo
Subtitle: a history of zoological gardens in the West
By: Eric Baratay and Elisabeth Hardouin-Fugier.
Contributors: Hardouin-Fugier, Elisabeth.
Publisher: Reaktion Books
Published: 2002
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 400
Subjects: Zoos -- History.; Zoo animals -- Behavior.; Zoology.
Description: This highly illustrated history of zoos in America and Europe from the Renaissance aristocrat's menagerie through the 20th-century public zoological garden charts the changing relationship between human viewers and wild beasts in a range of urban settings, including London, Berlin, Moscow and various European cities. The authors show how the collecting of wild animals, with its roots in the study of Nature in order to classify and dominate it, led to our contemporary concern with the preservation of endangered species and a nostalgia for untamed wilderness.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 371-396) and index.