Animal Attractions: Nature on display in American zoos by Elizabeth Hanson, Princeton University Press, £19.95, ISBN 0691059926
Savages and Beasts: The birth of the modern zoo by Nigel Rothfels, Johns Hopkins University Press, £26, ISBN 0801869102 Reviewed by by Adrian Barnett
A ZOO is not a zoo without an elephant, so said the good people of Boston back in the 1920s. The Boston Globe began a campaign to get the city’s children to donate their pocket money to buy three beasts about to be retired by a local circus. Not only would this educate the masses, but also unify the…
