Throughout his life photographer Jim Naughten has been fascinated with the natural world. As a child, he collected fossils he found near his home in Dover. Now a renowned photographer, Naughten has started to experiment with stereography and has turned to his boyhood interest, gaining access to the archives of some of the world's most prestigious natural history museums. This gorgeously produced book contains fifty images of marine life, reptiles, mammals, birds and primates photographed expressly for viewing through a stereoscope, which is included with the book. Stereoscopy was invented in 1839 to study and explain binocular vision. Having two eyes allows humans to determine distance and depth and stereoscopy shows a left- and right-eye view from a slightly different angle, as we see things in day-to-day life. Looking through the stereo viewer, readers will see the specimens as three-dimensional objects. As the images jump off the page, their incredible details become apparent-delicate bat wings, the spiraling skeleton of a python, the almost mythic form of a leafy sea dragon.A foreword by Martin Barnes of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London offers an assessment of the work while essays on the specimens themselves and the history of stereoscopy provide rich background to this photographic technology, and to Naughten's achievement in bringing to life a world that seamlessly melds the past and present.

The Victorian era heralded an age of transformation in which momentous changes in the field of natural history coincided with the rise of new visual technologies. Concurrently, different parts of the British Empire began to more actively claim their right to being acknowledged as indispensable contributors to knowledge and the progress of empire. This book addresses the complex relationship between natural history and photography from the 1850s to the 1880s in Britain and its colonies: Australia, New Zealand and, to a lesser extent, India. Coinciding with the rise of the modern museum, photography’s arrival was timely, and it rapidly became an essential technology for recording and publicising rare objects and valuable collections. Also during this period, the medium assumed a more significant role in the professional practices and reputations of naturalists than has been previously recognized, and it figured increasingly within the expanding specialized networks that were central to the production and dissemination of new knowledge. In an interrogation that ranges from the first forays into museum photography and early attempts to document collecting expeditions to the importance of traditional and photographic portraiture for the recognition of scientific discoveries, this book not only recasts the parameters of what we actually identify as natural history photography in the Victorian era but also how we understand the very structure of empire in relation to this genre at that time.

Gorgeous Beasts takes a fresh look at the place of animals in history and art. Refusing the traditional subordination of animals to humans, the essays gathered here examine a rich variety of ways animals contribute to culture: as living things, as scientific specimens, as food, weapons, tropes, and occasions for thought and creativity. History and culture set the terms for this inquiry. As history changes, so do the ways animals participate in culture. Gorgeous Beasts offers a series of discontinuous but probing studies of the forms their participation takes. This collection presents the work of a wide range of scholars, critics, and thinkers from diverse disciplines: philosophy, literature, history, geography, economics, art history, cultural studies, and the visual arts. By approaching animals from such different perspectives, these essays broaden the scope of animal studies to include specialists and nonspecialists alike, inviting readers from all backgrounds to consider the place of animals in history and art. Combining provocative critical insights with arresting visual imagery, Gorgeous Beasts advances a challenging new appreciation of animals as co-inhabitants and co-creators of culture. Aside from the editors, the contributors are Dean Bavington, Ron Broglio, Mark Dion, Erica Fudge, Cecilia Novero, Harriet Ritvo, Nigel Rothfels, Sajay Samuel, and Pierre Serna.

As one of the world's most popular cultural activities, wild animal collections have been attracting visitors for 5,000 years. Under the direction of Vernon N. Kisling, an expert in zoo history, an international team of authors has compiled the first comprehensive, global history of animal collections, menageries, zoos, and aquariums. Zoo and Aquar

"Zoological Record is published annually in separate sections. The first of these is Comprehensive Zoology, followed by sections recording a year's literature relating to a Phylum or Class of the Animal Kingdom. The final section contains the new genera and subgenera indexed in the volume." Each section of a volume lists the sections of that volume.