Human Zoos: The Invention of the Savage

by Pascal Blanchard (Editor), Gilles Boëtsch (Text), Nanette Jacomijn Snoep (Text)

"Human Zoos" offers a fascinating, sobering and macabre tour of man's exploitation of man--that is, Western man's exploitation of non-Western men and women--as recorded throughout the early history of photography, from the 1860s to the 1930s and the invention of "humane exhibiting" of nonwhite persons. Freak shows, the circuses of Buffalo Bill and P.T. Barnum and European colonial exhibitions provided the occasions for most of these images, several of which were incorporated into posters, postcards and other ephemera, designed with an improbable jauntiness. "Human Zoos "traces the evolution of such paradigmatic conceptions as "specimen," "savage" and "native" for the designation of peoples as various as Native Americans, Asians and Africans from all corners of the continent. As horrific and compelling as it is brilliantly researched and compiled, this volume unflinchingly surveys the very recent history of the West's arrogant abuse of those deemed to fall outside its brutal terms of civilization.

Genres: History, Microhistory, Nonfiction

382 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Irem]

The concept of "human zoos" is a new phenomenon, which appeared in between the 29th of November 2011 and the 3rd of June 2012, at the Quai de Branly Museum in Paris with a title "Exhibitions. L’invention du sauvage (Exhibitions: Invention of the Savage)." This exhibition was actually the outcome of the conference that started in Marseille in 2001 with the title "Mémoire colonial: zoos humains? Corps Exotiques, corps enfermés, corps mesurés. (Colonial Memory: Human Zoos, Exotic Bodies, Caged Bodies, Measured Bodies)." As you see from the title “Invention of the Savage”, the exhibition catalogue presented the fact that how the Western mind invented the Other through the use of colonial practices during the mid-nineteenth century, and thus legitimised its power by exhibiting them in European display zones. This catalogues aimed to tell about this forgotten historical story with the help of visual materials such as photographs, posters and postcards. It is obvious that, although the term "human zoos" is discovered recently, the phenomenon of dislocating 'native' people and relocating them on European stage has a history.

[Elizabeth Bradley]

I just LOVE being able to say... reading this FOR WORK!

[Pouillot · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un ouvrage extrèmement complet sur un sujet très particulier. Je me suis laissé embarquer dans ce voyage des cabinets de curiosité aux zoos humains en passant par les freak shows et les expositions coloniales. J'ai aimé dans la première partie la succession de description d'exmples aidé par le mode d'écriture en article de l'ouvrage tout en étant assez géné par le voyeurisme un peu malsain devant le destin tragique finalement de tant d'individus de contrées "exotiques" . Puis je me suis lassé de cette accumulation de références et d'angles de vue sur le sujet central : comment des exhibitions humainenent humiliantes ont servi à jusfifier les vertus coloniales et de là l'inégalité des races. Je suis sans doute passé à côté des nuances apportées par chaque article, mais pas sûr que cela méritait un tel développement sauf pour un érudit que je ne suis pas.