18th century animal history
A01=Louise E. Robbins
animal shows 18th century
Author_Louise E. Robbins
Category=JBCC
Category=NHD
Category=WN
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
exotic animals in Paris
exotic pet ownership
French animal trade
human-animal relationships
Parisian menageries
pet parrots historical
royal menagerie
Versailles animals
Product details
- ISBN 9780801867538
- Weight: 726g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 26 Apr 2002
- Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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In 1775, a visitor to Laurent Spinacuta's Grande Menagerie at the annual winter fair in Paris would have seen two tigers, several kinds of monkeys, an armadillo, an ocelot, and a condor-in all, forty-two live animals. In Elephant Slaves and Pampered Parrots, Louise Robbins explains that exotic animals from around the world were common in eighteenth-century Paris. In the streets of the city, residents and visitors could observe performing elephants and a fighting polar bear. Those looking for unusual pets could purchase parrots, flying squirrels, and capuchin monkeys. The royal menagerie at Versailles displayed lions, cranes, an elephant, a rhinoceros, and a zebra, which in 1760 became a major court attraction. For Enlightenment-era Parisians, exotic animals both piqued scientific curiosity and conveyed social status. Their availability was a boon for naturalists like Buffon, author of the best-selling Histoire naturelle, who observed unusual species in a variety of locations around the city.
Louis XVI saw his menagerie as a manifestation of his power and funded its upkeep accordingly, while critics used the caged animals as metaphors of slavery and political oppression amidst the growing political turmoil. In her engaging and often surprising account, Robbins considers nearly every aspect of France's obsession with exotic fauna, from the vast literature on exotic animals and the inner workings of the oiseleurs' (birdsellers') guild to how the animals were transported, housed, and cared for. Based on wide-ranging and imaginative research, Elephant Slaves and Pampered Parrots stands as a major contribution to the history of human-animal relations, eighteenth-century culture, and French colonialism.
Louise E. Robbins is an independent scholar and an editor at Cornell University Press. She has a doctorate in history of science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
