Introduction
Chapter 1: Out from the Island of Peacocks
Chapter 2: The Human Zoo
Chapter 3: To the Zoo! Animals and Society in the Imperial
Capital
Chapter 4: An End to the Sighing of the Animals
Chapter 5: The Nazi Ox: The Berlin Zoo and Nazism
Chapter 6: Animals among the Beasts: The Zoo Descends into War
Chapter 7: The Hippo and the Panda: A Tale of Two Zoos
Epilogue: Of Trams and Tortoises
Bibliography
Gary Bruce is Professor of History at the University of Waterloo. Winner of a distinguished teacher award, he is the author of The Firm: The Inside Story of the Stasi and of numerous articles on modern German history.
"this book certainly contributes to deepening our understanding of
zoos and their varied histories. Bruce's study is worth reading not
only for historians of modern and contemporary Germany, but also
for zoo scholars and those more broadly interested in the theme of
nature and modernity." -- Takashi Ito, Tokyo University of Foreign
Studies, English Historical Review
"Gary Bruce is certainly a captivating storyteller who keeps the
reader interested from beginning to end. The book is geared toward
a general audience interested in urban history or the cultural
history of zoological gardens. It will also make for enticing
reading for undergraduate and beginning graduate students. ... this
is surely a highly readable book that adds to our knowledge of zoos
as well as to the history of Berlin in the modern period." --
Dorothee
Brantz , Journal of Modern History
"Bruce uncovers the many sinister sides of the zoo's history and
the immense challenges during wartime." --Bernd Brunner, Times
Literary Supplement
With Through the Lion Gate, the Canadian historian Gary Bruce has
written the first comprehensive history of Germany's oldest and
arguably most prestigious zoo in English." -- Herman Reichenbach,
Archives of Natural History Vol.45.1
"[Bruce] provides not only an ambitiously researched, convincingly
written, and detailed history of the Berlin Zoological Garden, but
an insightful study of Berlin and its
people....Recommended."--CHOICE
"[A] thoroughly engaging history of the zoo's development through
time. What makes it so fascinating is that the story of the zoo is
equally telling about contemporary society and politics."--Ulrike
Zitzlsperger, Times Higher Education
"With Through the Lion Gate: A History of the Berlin Zoo, historian
Gary Bruce (The Firm) delivers a fascinating historical account of
Berliners through the lens of their beloved zoo .Bruce's engaging
narrative is complemented with photos of Bobby, Knut and other
beloved animals; the Inuit and Nubian tribes; and the beautiful
pagoda-style zoo architecture."--Shahina Piyarali, Shelf
Awareness
"Gary Bruce's lively book tells the story of the Berlin Zoo from
its origins to the present. He explains its popularity but does not
neglect the darker side of its history--the exhibiting of
indigenous peoples in the nineteenth century, and the zoo's
complicity in the Nazi years. Perhaps most important, readers will
learn much about changing attitudes to animals from this elegant,
informative work."--David Blackbourn, Vanderbilt University, author
of The
Conquest of Nature
"Gary Bruce has compellingly chronicled the history over the two
centuries of one of the most important European zoos. His narrative
evokes both the human and the non-human participants in that
history. Perhaps its greatest strength is that he does not present
the Berlin zoo as an isolated institution. On the contrary, he
interweaves his account of the zoo's internal affairs with the
larger cultural and political vicissitudes experienced by the city
of Berlin
and by the larger German society."--Harriet Ritvo, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, author of Noble Cows and Hybrid Zebras:
Essays on Animals and History
"In this fascinating account, based on meticulous research, Gary
Bruce has uncovered the ways in which the Berlin Zoo, a favorite
rendezvous for Berliners, adapted to the ideology of the political
regimes that followed its foundation in 1844. We see people from
far-flung regions being exhibited at the zoo as ethnographic
specimens; we learn how under the Nazis its scientific work was
manipulated to add credence to the regime's racial policies, and
how Berliners
recreated their beloved zoo after its almost total destruction by
Allied bombing during World War II. So iconic a symbol was the zoo
that with the division of the
city during the Cold War, a rival, the Tierpark, was set up in East
Berlin, intended not only as a place of recreation but also to
reinforce communist ideology."--Caroline Grigson, author of
Menagerie: the History of Exotic Animals in England
"Through the Lion Gate is an enjoyable and interesting book and a
work of admirable historical skill that can be appreciated by a
broad readership."--Nigel Rothfels, German Studies Review
"Intriguing historical personalities emerge from Bruce's profiles
of animal suppliers and zoo directors struggling to maintain the
institution under volatile political conditions."--Tuska Benes,
History: Reviews of New Books
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