Human Zoo

A must-read for anyone who has ever wondered why people do what they do, from the popular author of The Naked Ape. This study concerns the city dweller. Morris finds remarkable similarities with captive zoo animals and looks closely at the aggressive, sexual and parental behaviour of the human species under the stresses and pressures of urban living. ‘Compelling and absorbing...Morris is concerned with the tension between our biology and our culture, as it is expressed in power, sex, status and war games’ New York Times

A blistering new novel that follows a Filipino American journalist’s return to dictatorship-ruled Manila to research her book on tribes from a “cracklingly original” (Elle) and “singular” (New York Times Book Review) author, PEN Faulkner award-winner, Sabina Murray. Filipino-American Christina “Ting” Klein has just travelled from New York to Manila, both to escape her imminent divorce, and to begin research for a biography of Timicheg, an indigenous Filipino brought to America at the start of 20th century to be exhibited as part of a "human zoo." It has been a year since Ting’s last visit, and one year since Procopio “Copo” Gumboc swept the elections in an upset and took power as president. Arriving unannounced at her aging Aunt’s aristocratic home, Ting quickly falls into upper class Manila life—family gatherings at her cousin’s compound; spending time with her best friend Inchoy, a gay socialist professor of philosophy; and a flirtation with her ex-boyfriend Chet, a wealthy businessman with questionable ties to the regime. All the while, family duty dictates that Ting be responsible for Laird, a cousin’s fiancé, who has come from the States to rediscover his roots. As days pass, Ting witnesses modern Filipino society languishing under Gumboc’s terrifying reign. To make her way, she must balance the aristocratic traditions of her extended family, seemingly at odds with both situation and circumstance, as well temper her stance towards a regime her loved ones are struggling to survive. Yet Ting cannot extricate herself from the increasingly repressive regime, and soon finds herself personally confronted by the horrifying realities of Gumboc’s power. At once a propulsive look at contemporary Filipino politics and the history that impacted the country, The Human Zoo is a thrilling and provocative story from one of our most celebrated and important writers of literary fiction.

Peoplewatching is the culmination of a career of watching people - their behaviour and habits, their personalities and their quirks. Desmond Morris shows us how people, consciously and unconsciously, signal their attitudes, desires and innermost feelings with their bodies and actions, often more powerfully than with their words.

"Human zoos, forgotten symbols of the colonial era, have been totally repressed in our collective memory. In these 'anthropo-zoological' exhibitions, 'exotic' individuals were placed alongside wild beasts and presented behind bars or in enclosures. Human zoos were a key factor, however, in the progressive shift in the West from scientific to popular racism. Beginning with the early nineteenth-century European exhibition of the Hottentot Venus, this volume underlines the ways in which these exhibitions affected the lives of tens of millions of visitors, from London to New York, from Warsaw to Milan, from Moscow to Tokyo." "Human Zoos puts into perspective the 'spectacularization' of the Other, a process that is at the origin of contemporary stereotypes and of the construction of our own identities. This is a unique book on a crucial phenomenon, which takes us to the heart of Western fantasies and allows us to understand the genesis of identity in Japan, Europe and North America."--BOOK JACKET.

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.

Jax Cooper lives a comfortable life, maybe too comfortable. Born into a powerful family. Jax is the son of the largest mogul in the world. As a journalist for The Globe, he takes on a unique, self-assigned piece: to investigate his father's empire, The Human Zoo. Disguised as one of the animals and stripped of his identity, wealth, and eugenic luxuries, Jax is challenged by what it means to be human when he meets Priya.Born into the zoo's captivity, Priya has only known two things; she does not belong here, and she will do anything to escape, but freedom always seemed impossible until an unusual new animal, Jax, arrives.A gripping investigation turned life changing, Jax is forced to make a decision. Will he risk dismantling society by exposing who-or what-being an animal means...or succumb to his only living protection, his family's empire?

Most of us grew up with Aesop's Fables—tales of talking animals, with morals attached. In fact, the familiar versions of the stories attributed to this enigmatic and astute storyteller are based on adaptations of Aesop by the liberated Roman slave Phaedrus. In turn, Phaedrus's renderings have been rewritten so extensively over the centuries that they do not do justice to the originals. In Aesop's Human Zoo, legendary Cambridge classicist John Henderson puts together a surprising set of up-front translations—fifty sharp, raw, and sometimes bawdy, fables by Phaedrus into the tersest colloquial English verse. Providing unusual insights into the heart of Roman culture, these clever poems open up odd avenues of ancient lore and life as they explore social types and physical aspects of the body, regularly mocking the limitations of human nature and offering vulgar or promiscuous interpretations of the stuff of social life. Featuring folksy proverbs and satirical anecdotes, filled with saucy naughtiness and awful puns, Aesop's Human Zoo will amuse you with its eccentricities and hit home with its shrewdly candid and red raw messages. The entertainment offered in this volume of impeccably accurate translations is truly a novelty—a good-hearted and knowing laugh courtesy of classical poetry. Beginning to advanced classicists and Latin scholars will appreciate the original Latin text provided in this bilingual edition. The splash of classic Thomas Bewick wood engravings to accompany the fables renders the collection complete.

Well-run modern zoos and aquariums do important research and conservation work and teach visitors about the challenges of animals in the wild and the people striving to save them. They help visitors to consider their impact and think about how they can make a difference. Yet for many there is a sense of disquiet and a lingering question remains – can modern zoos be ethically justified? Zoo Ethics examines the workings of modern zoos and considers the core ethical challenges that face those who choose to hold and display animals in zoos, aquariums or sanctuaries. Using recognised ethical frameworks and case studies of ‘wicked problems’, this book explores the value of animal life and the impacts of modern zoos, including the costs to animals in terms of welfare and the loss of liberty. It also considers the positive welfare and health outcomes of many animals held in zoos, the increased attention and protection for their species in the wild, and the enjoyment and education of the people who visit zoos. A thoughtfully researched work written in a highly readable style, Zoo Ethics will empower students of animal ethics and veterinary sciences, zoo and aquarium professionals and interested zoo visitors to have an informed view of the challenges of compassionate conservation and to develop their own defendable, ethical position.