Noble Prize in Literature given to radical animal advocate

J.M.Coetzee's latest novel, entitled Elizabeth Costello , is in the form of 6 lessons or lectures given by the titular protagonist who is a fiction writer and college professor and outspoken proponent of animal rights. Two of the lessons are reprinted from an earlier book entitled, The Lives of the Animals . That book also was in the form of a set of invited lectures and only thinly veiled Coetzee's own strong position on animal exploitation. Following Isaac Bashevis Singer's award in 1978, Coetzee is the second recipient of the Nobel Prize Laureate for Literature by a major fiction writer who includes a radical animal advocacy message in his or her works.

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Animal Rights/Human Rights: Entanglements of Oppression and Liberation

Reviewed for H-NILAS by Kathy Gerbasi, Department of Psychology, Niagara County Community College, Sanborn, N.Y. © H-NILAS 2003.

Socialism Advocated to Reduce Oppression of Human and Non-Human Animals

I am psychologist not a sociologist or historian, as such my social construction of reality differs considerably from Professor Nibert's. I am generally inclined to attribute an individual's position on or even awareness of animal rights issues to that person's attitudes, beliefs, and emotions rather than the structure of society. In an attempt to give a fair review of this book I will briefly describe each of the seven chapters and indicate what to me are the strengths and weaknesses of this work. I suspect a sociologist, historian, or maybe political scientist would approach an evaluation of this book differently. Aside from the book's back cover and Foreword by Michael W. Fox I have not found any other reviews of the book with which to compare my views.

In _Animal Rights/Human Rights: Entanglements of Oppression and Liberation_ sociologist David Nibert passionately attempts to demonstrate that all devalued and oppressed groups including women, gays, blacks, people with disabilities, and non-human animals are victims of the same overwhelming forces of capitalist society. Most of his book is an exposition and analysis of these forces of oppression. He proposes socialism as a means to reduce the resultant misery that capitalism and its related social structures have imposed on all oppressed groups.

Nibert states in Chapter One "This book will explore these fused forms of oppression by way of reflections on Western history and on developing economic practices, political processes, and belief systems " this book will document how the historical oppression of humans and other animals has provided a benefit primarily for a relatively _small_ number of humans, particularly those with substantial privilege and power." (p. 3) Throughout the book Nibert provides countless compelling examples of events that support his view.

His goal is to convince the reader that people involved in various liberation movements need to cooperate and join forces in order to become successful. He posits three societal factors which are necessary to develop and maintain oppression of humans and other animals. These forces are economic exploitation and competition, unequal power, and ideological control. Nibert identifies capitalism and the profit motive as the major force of oppression. His comprehensive list of oppressors includes the ever expanding and powerful agribusiness, government (which Nibert says predominantly serves the powerful), and cultural forces such as mass media, museums, family, and educational institutions, all of which promote the status quo of oppression.

In Chapter Two he argues that "the motivation for the development and institutionalization of oppressive practices is primarily material, not attitudinal. Such arrangements are not generic or innate, and prejudice is the product of these arrangements not the principal cause. " (p. 52) While I agree that individuals are influenced by situations and circumstances around them, I am not convinced it is sufficient to relegate attitudinal influences to the backseat.

Chapter Three is a detailed analysis of the key role that capitalism plays in oppression. "The denigration and exploitation of workers, ruthless economic concentration and centralization--all compelled by the capitalist system-- fanned the flames of prejudice and ethnocentrism against all potentially exploitable and devalued groups" (p. 64) In this analysis oppression is viewed as the outcome of institutional and economic forces, not individual attitudes or psychological factors. Further Nibert claims "millions of humans and billions of other animals have been cruelly treated and killed because their existence somehow hindered, or their exploitation furthered the accumulation of private profit--particularly for the affluent and powerful." (p. 94)

Chapter Four is a review of the development of agribusiness and the "Green Revolution". The message here is that as small farms have been consumed by huge factory farms, the animal has become a product not a living being. Agribusiness gives no consideration to the quality of life for animals, who are referred to as products. Agribusiness and its profit motive have resulted in horrific living and death for livestock. Nibert refers to meat production as disassembling. That is a compelling image, I will use when I discuss the topic with my students. Nibert also links the horror of the animals' condition with those of the human meat production workers and the insult to the environment caused by agribusiness. Nibert further discusses the conspiracy between big business and the U.S.D.A. to promote meat consumption as healthy and necessary for human nutrition. The point of this chapter is that these practices are not good for anyone, human or non-human.

The message of Chapter Five is "many activists and scholars view the state as 'a device actively developed by powerful elites to establish and maintain their dominance' over others" (p. 147). In this chapter Nibert gives many examples of laws and Congressional hearings that have unsatisfactorily (from the point of view of the animal activist) dealt with animal issues. He also makes clear the conflict of interest apparent in the U.S.D.A.'s role of both health inspection and promotion of meat products. Nibert concludes this chapter thusly, "Fully aware of the limitations and obstacles to real and lasting change under capitalism, strategists for liberation of humans and other animals should continue to pursue liberation through political measures, but they must also challenge the control of the capitalist elite over the various powers of the state while striving to change the structure of the state to one that is responsive to public, not monied, interests" (p. 188).

Chapter Six is titled "The Social Construction of Speciesist Reality". The thesis of this chapter is "the entangled nature of the oppression of humans and other animals not only has deep economic roots, supported by a powerful state apparatus, but also has considerable public support among a citizenry raised in a society in which powerful corporations exert extraordinary control over beliefs and values." (p. 196) The examples Nibert provides in this chapter support his view that "the political, educational, religious, and familial institutions of these societies were shaped and molded by the economically motivated oppression of humans and other animals." (p. 199) He continues by identifying and discussing _agencies of socialization_ such as mass media, schools, museums, and the state which promote and indoctrinate people with the accepted socially constructed view of reality.

In the seventh and final chapter Nibert exhorts activists who are working to improve conditions for various oppressed groups to join forces and promote socialism as a means of gaining rights for the oppressed. He discusses the inability of many who are working in the arena of human rights to see this connection between the oppression of human and non-human others. Nibert states, "It is important that members of other contemporary liberation movements come to realize that the current oppression of other animals, especially as "food," is ethically atrocious and causes unimaginable pain and suffering "(p. 240) "Many on the Left, who otherwise will challenge authority and question the status quo, nonetheless accept the social position and treatment of other animals determined by agribusiness; the pharmaceutical, biomedical, and chemical industries; state departments of 'wildlife' ... As long as social critics and activists accept this sate of affairs, odds are great that, among the numerous other disastrous consequences, the dispossessed of the Earth will continue to experience malnutrition and oppression while the masses in more affluent countries are pacified in part by making themselves obese and sick eating 'meat', dairy products, and eggs."(241)

For the rest of my comments to be understood their proper perspective, the reader should know where I stand on the question of animal oppression. Prior to reading this book I was concerned about the well being of humans and other animals. I work for PSYETA (Psychologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) whose goal it is to reduce human and animal suffering and abuse. I am a vegetarian. My route to vegetarianism was not through the creation of a socialist society but through psychology and cognitive ethology. Knowledge gained from these fields confirmed my appreciation of the uniqueness, sentience, and individuality of non-human animals. I decided it was simply wrong to eat any other beings. (For a very readable discussion of cognitive ethology and its implications for animal rights I recommend Steven Wise's book _Drawing the Line: Science and the Case For Animal Rights_ (2002)). While I completely agree with Nibert's statements about the horrors of factory farming and disassembly plants, I did not really learn about these atrocities until after I stopped consuming meat.

Reading this book made me think about elements of society and how they may collude to treat the oppressed and perpetuate the miserable condition of non-human animals. However, I do not think I would not have finished reading the book if I had not agreed to review it. I found many of the examples and themes repetitive and the tone of the book didactic. I wanted to know how Nibert could be so certain that he was correct. I might have been more convinced by a two-sided rather than one-sided argument. I kept waiting for some empirical evidence other than correlational examples to convince me of the rightness of Nibert's socialist position.

I suspect others would have similar problems with the book. There is no replicable methodology. Nibert himself tells us that he is going to give us "reflections" on Western history. While I am sympathetic to the condition of oppression, I cannot believe that every person's reflective process would lead to Nibert's conclusions. This book is a statement of the author's social construction of history and reality. He certainly presented a large number of cogent examples which supported his point of view, but I am reasonably sure that someone who disagreed with him could find an equal number of powerful examples that would support an opposite view. How is the open-minded but skeptical reader to know whether to accept or reject Nibert's position?

Nibert does not address this methodological concern and that bothers me a great deal. The ability to find and interpret historical events in a way that supports a theory, will not convince the skeptic that the theory is valid. I read the book as a skeptic, not as a believer in socialism and its potential benefits to the oppressed. I imagine that a reader who did not subscribe to an animal rights point of view prior to starting the book would probably never finish reading it. Such a reader could readily identify the book as the presentation of one person's observations and that would be sufficient excuse to discount the book and its message.

These observations aside, a reader who is interested in promoting the welfare of human or non-human others will probably benefit from reading and reflecting on Nibert's message.

Reference
Wise, Steven. 2002. _Drawing the Line: Science and the Case For Animal Rights_. Cambridge, Mass. Perseus Books.

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Reviewed by Dr. Kenneth J. Shapiro

Patterson 's study of the relation between the Holocaust and our treatment of nonhuman animals provokes strong feelings, as did the recent exhibit by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, "Holocaust on Your Plate" "See arguments pro and con the use of the Holocaust metaphor applied to animal issues (PSYETA News, Spring 2003).

Whatever one might think of the ethics, politics, effectiveness, or aptness of using the Holocaust as a metaphor to describe the modern treatment of nonhuman animals, particularly in factory farms and slaughter houses, the significant contribution of Patterson's book is the demonstration of the reverse thesis - not that nonhuman animals are treated like the victims of the original Holocaust but that that the Jews in World War II were treated like nonhuman animals.

Patterson shows how the modern slaughter-house, originating in Chicago, was the model for Henry Ford 's development of the automobile assembly line which was, in turn, a model for death camps such as Treblinka (chapter 3, "The industrialization of slaughter"). Not incidentally, Ford, who was admired by Hitler, was a virulent anti-Semite whose newspaper, the Dearborn Independent, published materials supporting the myth of an international Jewish conspiracy.

Intensive animal agriculture also provided a scientific theory used to "justify" the Holocaust. Patterson describes "how the breeding of domesticated animals led to such eugenic measures as compulsory sterilization, euthanasia killings, and genocide" (p. 109). The science of genetics, partly originating in and applied to animal husbandry, was used to rationalize racist ideology and to support the Final Solution. In fact, several of the architects of the Nazi death camps had backgrounds in animal agriculture.

Like Marjorie Spiegel 's The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal Slavery, Eternal Treblinka is important but very unpleasant book that people interested in our treatment of nonhuman animals ought to read.

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Review by Emily Patterson-Kane

As an animal psychologist I approached this book with some trepidation, knowing that it was highly critical of animal use in psychology. What I found was a book distinguished by relentless rationality, thorough research, and a truly inter-disciplinary framework. The use of animal models in psychology has definitely proved to be a disappointment to many - producing modest gains but consuming vast resources and the lives of countless animals. The final conclusion that animal research should be limited entirely to naturalistic frameworks, and out of an interest in the species observed, is justifiable.

Many of Shapiro's points are startlingly sensible. As examples I would pick out the need for a broader definition of suffering, the almost unavoidable error that growing fields of study make in divorcing theory from practice, and the need to deal more subtly with equivalency between species. Any of these points would be worth a lengthy and prominently published essay from a writer with the Shapiro's evident clarity and uncommon common sense. For example, in science and policy "animal welfare" has become a narrow issue of emotional suffering in which other harms such as retarded cognitive development, or even death, are simply not counted. The connection between welfare and harm needs to be made as clear to scientists as it is to the general public (and in the writing of many ethicists).

I was distracted a little by what I saw as by the book's flogging of the "usual suspects." That is to say I am an animal researcher and radical behaviourist and therefore I sensitive to criticisms of these groups, particularly when they were attributed with beliefs and motives that I would emphatically reject. For example it was written that behaviourists assume that "animals consist of observable behaviours" (77). This is not true of Skinner (who wrote several chapters on feelings and thoughts) or of myself (currently researching emotional expression in pigs). Elements of behaviourism that could be caste in a positive light, are not (i.e. the equivalence of human and non-human species, avoidance of statistically "averaging" animals, etc). Of researchers in general, it is implied in the book, and reiterated the foreword, that animal researchers model psychological conditions in order to get money. In order to balance this view I must add that researchers rarely pull in high salaries compared to similarly qualified individuals in other professions, and that most animal researchers are undoubtedly also motivated by a genuine desire to reduce human suffering.

I think that the book makes it's points well using models of eating disorders as an example. However this is an area of research long held in some contempt even by other "animal model" users (I was certainly taught to distrust the validity of these models in my undergraduate training). It would be interesting to see whether things looks quite so grim when focusing on some of the more productive areas of animal research such as training/education, addiction, or depression. I expect that there would still be much more dross than gold - but that small amounts of gold might be found to actually exist.

Overall I think that this book should sit on the library shelves of every university with a psychology department, especially those with an animal laboratory. Many students are naturally skeptical of animal experimentation - and armed with Shapiro's elegant arguments they might have more luck making teachers and researchers truly attempt justify the philosophical and empirical bases for their use of animal models rather than letting them get away with the usual rote-learned rebuttals. Those that are insulated from the dissenting voices of students, technicians, lay people or progressive colleagues should certainly read the book themselves and put it on the shelf beside writers such as Singer, Midgley and Regan. Many laboratories are "dealing" with animal welfare issues with a strategy of invisibility and obfuscation that is a slow poison to the integrity of animal science and education. It is not those that agree with Shapiro that most need to read this book, but those who carry out the practices he condemns and therefore must be prepared to justify them.

About the Reviewer:
Emily Patterson-Kane is an operant psychologist active in animal welfare science. She has conducted research into methods for providing enriched environments to laboratory animals, and the development of non-invasive indices of welfare in pigs. She has an enduring interest in developing more co-operative and harmless methods of working with animals in research, and in communicating the important of understanding any animal you work with as an individual and as a representative of its species.

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Review by Kenneth J. Shapiro
Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2002. Hardcover. 280 pages. ISBN: 1580461212

This and the companion anthology, The Animal/Human Boundary: Historical Perspectives (eds., Creager and Jordan), firmly establish human-animal studies (HAS) in the field of history. Both books are selected proceedings of a 2 year project, sponsored by the Davis Center for Historical Studies at Princeton and featuring a seminar series of invited speakers and resident fellows.

Both books are heavy in both bulk and difficulty, but contain fascinating studies of various aspects of the human-animal relation. The Henninger-Voss has papers on agriculture, hunting, zoos, companion animals, and animals in the lab. To illustrate the kind of material presented, Grier describes how, in 19th century America, the ways in which children related to nonhuman animals provided a paradigmatic set of values or virtues. Kindness to animals, being "humane," was generalized to an important character trait that could be fostered through, or could go awry in, human-animal interactions--the boy could replace rescue the baby bird fallen from the nest or he could rob the nest of its hatchlings. 

In the area of laboratory models, Rader presents a history of Jackson Lab in Bar Harbor, Maine. C. C. Little, its founder, has fascinating connections with the automobile industry -- borrowing from it both the methods and ideals of assembly line production (fordism), and money to create the premier mass supplier of animals used in laboratory research.

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London: Reaktion Books, 2002.paper 232 pages, including notes and Index.103 illustrations. Paperback original. ISBN: 1-86189 131 8

Review by Marion W. Copeland, Tufts Center for Animals and Public Policy. Email: mwcopeland@attbi.com

The Animal Image in Film: More Powerful than Meets the Eye

Burt begins with what seems at first a straight-forward question of obvious relevance to anyone involved with current attitudes toward animals:  How is it that the animal image has come to carry both aesthetic and ethical power on the screen?  The history of the entangled relationship among human film-makers, whether of documentaries, short subjects, or feature films, their technical skills, their artistry, and animals is fascinating.  We learn that audiences are more affected aesthetically, emotionally, and ethically by what they see than perhaps we had assumed.  Burt calls human"vision" the most impressionable and effective sense. (138).   Although this has obvious implications for anyone concerned with the rights and welfare of animals, few scholarly studies are devoted to the power of the animal image in film or, for that matter, in other forms of art. Even literary scholars have paid far too little attention to the pervasive presence of animals in every genre of literature.  Thus, Burt's contribution is important and ground-breaking, raising numerous questions as food for thought for future researchers and critics. 

Burt sees the current absence of scholarly attention to the animal in film as "willful blindnes"  However it is explained, the disparity between the frequency of appearance of animals in art and the infrequency of comment on that appearance in criticism needs explanation since it accounts in part for what Burt calls the "curious status" of animals in film: At one level they are of considerable significance and the object of detailed attention, and yet in other ways they are often marginalized in relation to the main frame of human interest. (82)  Particularly in feature films, animal imagery is "ever present," yet it is human concerns that absorb critical attention.  Burt is less sure which absorbs the attention of audiences, however.  The presence of animals in a film narrative unquestionably captures audience attention. 

The question is what role animal presence plays in a given film.  The answer, according to Burt lies, in part, in the film-maker 's own attitude toward animals and the point being made by including animals in the film.  If they are accepted as central to the plot and theme, treated as subject rather than object, presented as complex characters in and of themselves they are likely to raise an audience 's awareness of the need for animal welfare and rights.  If they are merely interesting background objects that at best lend verisimilitude to the setting and, at worst, make the film pretty or amusing they are likely, instead, to reinforce the ambiguous status the animal now occupies.  At least in the UK and USA audiences are likely to possess what Burt calls "cultural oversensitivity to the treatment of animals in film" which he feels plays ambiguously against 'the daily dependence of our culture' on animal exploitation.

To illustrate this ambiguity, Burt devotes considerable discussion to films like Mexican director Alejandro Inarritu's Amores Perros (2002) in which organized dog fighting serves as the core of the plot but is also used symbolically to support the theme.  Despite carefully worded assurance that all fights were faked, the film caused outrage.  Rather than interpreting the images as imagery as they undoubtedly would if the violence involved human actors, audiences seemed unable to separate fiction from reality.  Perhaps that is why public outrage so seldom translates into meaningful change in how our culture actually treats animals.  Such ambiguity is less seldom a problem in the history of the role played by the animal in the development of film technology to which Burt devotes much attention.  It is absolutely critical to what is to my mind his more important query about "the unresolvable dialectic between humane and cruel attitudes toward animals that governs their history in modern culture " (85).

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Review by Kenneth J. Shapiro

Human-Animal Studies (HAS) is an emerging new field of study that investigates all aspects of human-animal relations. Many traditional academic fields  rarely include animals other than humans, and HAS would expand their scope. Other fields include animals other than humans, but in ways that are reductive and disrespectful.  HAS respects animals other than humans by treating them as beings with their own experience and interests -- not exclusively as cultural artifacts, symbols, models, or commodities in a largely human-centered world.

On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of its publication, Society and Animals (S&A) presented a set of 14 papers on the state of HAS. Contributors responded to two questions: What has your field contributed to animal studies thus far? What does your field need to do to advance animal studies? The fields represented are psychology, sociology, anthropology, criminology, geography, political science, economics, history, postcolonial studies, and feminist studies. 

As Gerbasi et al report, the number of dissertations in HAS has increased more in the last two decades and at a faster rate than the increase in numbers of all dissertations. Despite this,  the increased number of journals and book series providing publication venues for studies in HAS, and progress in selected fields (sociology, psychology, and geography), we remain a long way from the goal of establishing this field on an equal footing with other fields with a socially progressive mission, Women 's and Black Studies. 

Contributors attribute the field 's continued marginalization to the traditional categorical cleavage between humans and other animals, which devalues the latter; the difficulty in attaining scientifically reliable and valid understanding of other species; the inherently cross-disciplinary nature of HAS; and, politically, the association of HAS with the Animal Rights Movement.

Note: This special issue of S&A is available for sale via our secure online order page.

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Review by Marion W. Copeland

To Be or Not to Be an Animal

Every biologist and animal behaviorist--not to mention every animal lover--dreams of actually becoming animals of other species, of experiencing life from other than human perspectives.  Alessandro Boffa, a biologist born in Moscow and trained in Italy who now divides his time between Italy and Thailand, has done more than dream.  In Boffa's first novel, You're an Animal, Viskovitz! , his protagonist shifts species with abandon. In the whirlpool of identities he experiences there are three constants: his name (Viskovitz), his sexual drive (though not his sex), and his pursuit of the equally metamorphic lady of his desire, Ljuba.

David Walton points out in his review of this book that "What Boffa does ... with zoology is akin to what Alan Lightman did with physics in Einstein's  Dreams .  Both books are small and light, written in short chapters, each one playing upon some aspect of its respective field of science."[1]  Another reviewer, Frank Dillard, writes that "Boffa's knowledge of the natural world makes these stories almost as educational as they are entertaining.  The delight is in the details, and it's easy to imagine a beginning biology student using this book to remember an animal's inherent traits."[2]  A reviewer for Publishers Weekly goes further, commenting on how "the precise physiological details [Boffa] provides for each embodiment of his protagonist ring with technical precision."[3]

Boffa explores twenty-one species in all, beginning with the Prologue's Emperor Penguin, chosen I think because it is one of only a few examples of the male in charge of the creative process of birth (hatching), and ending at the beginning, so to speak, with the first multi-celled organism. This 21st-century fable seems like a coming of age by the time we come to the end of it, having gained a true understanding of what it means to be an animal.  Indeed, Boffa's main theme is not metamorphosis itself, but the problem of bringing humans to an understanding, not just of what it means to be other animals, but that humans themselves are animals and, like all Earth's life forms, evolved from the same first multi-celled beings.

While each tale has an ironic tone, I disagree with The New Yorker's Leo Carey, who said that Boffa intends readers to see "metamorphosis as a cosmic bad joke."[4]  If one abandons the usual anthropocentric view and sees the tales as being as much about the strange and fascinating forms of nonhuman life with which Earth abounds as about human foibles, the novel becomes, instead of a joke, a revelation of the endless similarities and differences to be found among the life forces of the planet.  Boffa's emphasis on sex and the idealization of its object--Ljuba--can as easily be interpreted as the biologist's recognition of the powers of both the drive to reproduce and of the role played by imagination, not just in humans but in all species right down to that first single-celled miracle who dreamed itself into division and multiplication.  As Boffa's species-specific tales suggest, it may well be that every species idealizes (and perhaps demonizes) the sexual other.

This spare collection of tales succeeds both in satirizing human foibles (as fables presumably do traditionally) and in presenting nonhumans completely true to their nonhuman natures.  Their shared foibles simply underscores Boffa's main point that You're an Animal, Viskovitz!

About the reviewer:

Marion W. Copeland is a retired professor from Holyoke Community College where she taught English for 30 years, introducing the first animal in literature courses. Before retiring she became affiliated with the Center for Animals and Public Policy and has been teaching, mentoring and tutoring in that program since. She is a founding member of NILAS, has presented animals in literature lectures at many of the early DELTA conferences and has been reviewing and writing in the field since. Her essay on animals in children's lit, coauthored with Heidi O'Brien of NAHEE, appears in the upcoming State of the Animals 2003. Another essay on animals in the works of Beatrix Potter and Gene Stratton-Porter appears in an anthology to be published this spring and she has a forthcoming book on the cockroach coming out in the fall in a series called the Animals (Reaktion Books).

NOTES

[1] Walton, David. Review of You're an Animal, Viskovitz! , by Alessandro Boffa. Minneapolis Star Tribune , 16 June 2002.

[2] Diller, Frank. Review of You're an Animal, Viskovitz! , by Alessandro Boffa. Baltimore City Paper , 2-9 July 2002.

[3] Anonymous. Review of You're an Animal, Viskovitz! , by Alessandro Boffa. Publishers Weekly , 2002.

[4] Carey, Leo. "Book Currents: Change Will Do You Good." The New Yorker , 16 September 2002, p. 24.

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Review by Anna Williams

Despite its apparently narrow historical focus, this book raises important questions about the history of the modern zoo and our seemingly endless cultural appetite for spectacles of animal confinement.

Examining the historical roots of contemporary zoo culture, Nigel Rothfels explores the business enterprises of nineteenth century German entrepreneur Carl Hagenbeck. Hagenbeck is best know today as the founder of the Hamburg Tierpark, the first modern zoo to largely dispense with metal cages as a means of confinement. This more subtle architecture of captivity, using moats and trenches, has been widely depicted as evidence of an increasingly benign attitude to non-human animals in which the zoo becomes a space where animals enjoy a protected freedom. Within this historical narrative Hagenbeck himself features as a man remarkable for his love of animals. Rothfels takes a more nuanced look at the Hagenbeck enterprises, paying particularly close attention to the relationship between the displays of indigenous people and animals, and the economic function of the Tierpark.

Rothfels points out that in his lifetime, Hagenbeck was best know for his people shows, spectacular exhibits which in which hundreds of indigenous people were exhibited to European and North American audiences. Hagenbeck was able to outdo his competitors in this exhibitionary niche because he was able to successfully persuade potential viewers of the authenticity of his shows. Rothfels demonstrates that the success of this claim was a measure of Hagenbeck 's ability to fulfill the audience's fantasies of what these "alien" cultures were like, with predictably racist and voyeuristic results. Rothfels also documents the enormous scientific interest in Hagenbeck 's shows. He describes the ruthlessly invasive examinations to which the participants were subject, all in the name of science, and the ways in which they resisted 

Significantly, Rothfels documents the close connection between Hagenbeck 's people shows and his animal displays. The claim to be showing animals "as they really were, " in the apparently unconfined surrounding of the Tierpark, was taken wholesale from the displays of indigenous peoples. Having demonstrated that the claim for authenticity functioned as a measure of domestic mores, Rothfels ' historical work raises important questions about the contemporary display of captive animals and the desires to which these exhibits respond. The narrative of authenticity implicitly asks us to overlook the evidence of confinement that is literally right in front of our eyes. The ease with which so many people seem to be able to participate in this denial is surely evidence of the powerful ideological rewards at stake.

Injecting financial realism into the tendency to depict zoos as selfless institutions devoted to conservation and public education, Rothfels puts the Tierpark into context as an economic enterprise. The park was both a revenue generating spectacle and a warehouse for Hagenbeck 's business, which specialized in the hunting and sale of wild animals. Rothfels draws attention to the impact of hunting expeditions on people and animals. As an instance of colonial commerce these expeditions brought very limited benefits to local people. As the nineteenth century progressed hunting expeditions were subject to tighter metropolitan control, with native hunters increasingly sidelined. 

Rothfels also underlines the incredible violence of the animal hunt in which whole herds were slaughtered to secure a small number of tractable offspring. In other instances the numbers are startling. An inventory of animals received at the Tierpark in 1913 includes "8,000 top quality clean Horsfield 's tortoises packed in sacks." Seven years later Hagenbeck trapped and shipped 8,000 rhesus monkeys to the Rockefeller Institute in the United States to be used in the study of yellow fever (187). As Rothfels so eloquently demonstrates it was precisely this traffic in wild animals that made possible the myth of the zoo as a benevolent site of conservation and protection.

The contradictory claims made on behalf of the Tierpark, that the animals enjoy a freedom in confinement, are today made on behalf of a range of popular institutions from including zoos, "safari" parks, and aquaria. Rothfels provides a rewarding inquiry into the larger history of this exhibitionary trend and raises important questions about the display of people and animals. His book is required reading for anyone interested in the history of the zoo as a cultural institution.

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