Human Zoos Science and Spectacle in the Age of Empire

One of the first modern exhibitions of living humans was produced by the great American showman and charlatan P. T. Barnum who infamously introduced the public to Siamese twins Chang and Eng Bunker and George Washington's supposed "mammy," Joice Heth, in 1835. Human zoo exhibits like Barnum'sforgotten symbols of the colonial area predicated on a vague scientific racismhave been largely repressed in our collective memory.Human Zoos, which begins with the early nineteenth-century exhibition of the Hottentot Venus and proceeds through a history of showcasing "savages" and "peoples of the world"in New York, Moscow, Paris, and Tokyo, among other placesin a chronicle of our cultural effort to present the Other as a spectacle, unearths the men, women, and children who became extras in an imaginary history that was by no means their own. A bestseller on its original publication in France, with the addition of newly commissioned chapters and a contemporary translation, this unique and remarkable volume discusses a crucial phenomenon at the heart of Western fantasies, allowing us to understand anew the genesis of popular racism and cultural identity that fueled our fascination with colonial and imperial cultures.

Nicholas Bancel is professor of history at the Marc Bloch University of Strasbourg II in Austria. Pascal Blanchard is a historian and the founder of the Association Connaissance de l’histoire de l’Afrique contemporaine. Giles Boëtsch is director of research at the Centre national de la recherché scientifique. Eric Deroo is a historian and filmmaker. Sandrine Lemaire is a historian and author. Charles Forsdick is the James Barrow Professor of French at the University of Liverpool.