Why do people go to zoos? Is the role of zoos to entertain or to educate? In this provocative book, the authors demonstrate that zoos tell us as much about humans as they do about animals and suggest that while animals may not need zoos, urban societies seem to. A new introduction takes note of dramatic changes in the perceived role of zoos that have occurred since the book's original publication. "Bob Mullan and Garry Marvin delve into the assumptions about animals that are embedded in our culture. . . . A thought-provoking glimpse of our own ideas about the exotic, the foreign." -- Tess Lemmon, BBC Wildlife Magazine "A thoughtful and entertaining guided tour." -- David White, New Society "[An] unusual and intriguing combination of historical survey, psychological enquiry, and compendium of fascinating facts." -- Evening Standard

Provides a history of zoos, examines the faults of zoos, and argues for their dissolution.

From sixteenth-century cabinets of wonders to contemporary animal art, The Breathless Zoo: Taxidermy and the Cultures of Longing examines the cultural and poetic history of preserving animals in lively postures. But why would anyone want to preserve an animal, and what is this animal-thing now? Rachel Poliquin suggests that taxidermy is entwined with the enduring human longing to find meaning with and within the natural world. Her study draws out the longings at the heart of taxidermy—the longing for wonder, beauty, spectacle, order, narrative, allegory, and remembrance. In so doing, The Breathless Zoo explores the animal spectacles desired by particular communities, human assumptions of superiority, the yearnings for hidden truths within animal form, and the loneliness and longing that haunt our strange human existence, being both within and apart from nature.

There is a growing recognition that the diversity of life comprises both biological and cultural diversity. But this division is not universal and, in many cases, has been deepened by the common disciplinary divide between the natural and social sciences and our apparent need to manage and control nature. This book goes beyond divisive definitions and investigates the bridges linking biological and cultural diversity. The international team of authors explore the common drivers of loss, and argue that policy responses should target both forms of diversity in a novel integrative approach to conservation, thus reducing the gap between science, policy and practice. While conserving nature alongside human cultures presents unique challenges, this book forcefully shows that any hope for saving biological diversity is predicated on a concomitant effort to appreciate and protect cultural diversity.

The papers presented in this volume range from proposals for new design approaches, historical analysis of the relationship between the practice of landscape architecture and environmentalism, to the theories of early practitioners of landscape architecture imbued by an environmentalist outlook. The issues above are addressed through topics as eclectic as the design of American zoos, the establishment of the Tennessee Valley Authority, road design and maintenance in Texas, and criticism of relationships between the words and works of select landscape architects. This volume provides a fresh approach to encounters between environmentalism and landscape architecture by reframing the issues through self-reflection instead of strategic debate.

A fascinating exploration of the way in which animals are 'framed' - contextualized, decontextualized - in contemporary visual culture. Written in a highly engaging style, this book challenges the field, dealing with some highly controversial aspects of animal exploitation and boldly examines material that is seldom discussed within animal studies.

This book takes a unique stance on a controversial topic: zoos. Zoos have their ardent supporters and their vocal detractors. And while we all have opinions on what zoos do, few people consider how they do it. Irus Braverman draws on more than seventy interviews conducted with zoo managers and administrators, as well as animal activists, to offer a glimpse into the otherwise unknown complexities of zooland. Zooland begins and ends with the story of Timmy, the oldest male gorilla in North America, to illustrate the dramatic transformations of zoos since the 1970s. Over these decades, modern zoos have transformed themselves from places created largely for entertainment to globally connected institutions that emphasize care through conservation and education. Zoos naturalize their spaces, classify their animals, and produce spectacular experiences for their human visitors. Zoos name, register, track, and allocate their animals in global databases. Zoos both abide by and create laws and industry standards that govern their captive animals. Finally, zoos intensely govern the reproduction of captive animals, carefully calculating the life and death of these animals, deciding which of them will be sustained and which will expire. Zooland takes readers behind the exhibits into the world of zoo animals and their caretakers. And in so doing, it turns its gaze back on us to make surprising interconnections between our understandings of the human and the nonhuman.