“displaying “nature” is a complex, many-faceted, ever-changing imaginative act.”
“Linnaeus gave us the ordering we still use: family, genus, and species. He classed humans as animals for the first time, too, using the term homo sapiens in 1758.”
““Displaying” reflects popular cultural beliefs about the way animals live in the wild”
“the first natural history museums founded in Western nations also had political undertones—as if trapping and naming wild animals was a symbolic act of empire, the domination of “savage” lands”
“animals will always remain mysterious and unknowable—“potential grizzlies.” They can turn into figures of nightmare”
“We humans constantly intervene in animal lives, making them part of our own history.”
“I found it strange, after being in their company, to come out onto the busy Euston Road among bustling human animals in their city clothes. I began to wonder just how we might be modifying ourselves.”