Overview

It is widely known that such Western institutions as the museum, the university, and the penitentiary shaped Japan's emergence as a modern nation-state. Less commonly recognized is the role played by the distinctly hybrid institution-at once museum, laboratory, and prison-of the zoological garden. In this eye-opening study of Japan's first modern zoo, Tokyo's Ueno Imperial Zoological Gardens, opened in 1882, Ian Jared Miller offers a refreshingly unconventional narrative of Japan's rapid modernization and changing relationship with the natural world. As the first zoological garden in the world not built under the sway of a Western imperial regime, the Ueno Zoo served not only as a staple attraction in the nation's capital-an institutional marker of national accomplishment-but also as a site for the propagation of a new ""natural"" order that was scientifically verifiable and evolutionarily foreordained. As the Japanese empire grew, Ueno became one of the primary sites of imperialist spectacle, a microcosm of the empire that could be traveled in the course of a single day. The meaning of the zoo would change over the course of Imperial Japan's unraveling and subsequent Allied occupation. Today it remains one of Japan's most frequently visited places. But instead of empire in its classic political sense, it now bespeaks the ambivalent dominion of the human species over the natural environment, harkening back to its imperial roots even as it asks us to question our exploitation of the planet's resources.

Full Product Details

Author:   Ian Jared Miller ,  Harriet Ritvo
Publisher:   University of California Press
Imprint:   University of California Press
Volume:   27
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.50cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.499kg
ISBN:  

9780520377523

ISBN 10:   0520377524
Pages:   352
Publication Date:   05 January 2021
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Out of stock  
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Table of Contents

Figures Foreword by Harriet Ritvo Acknowledgements Note on Transliteration INTRODUCTION Japan's Ecological Modernity I. Animals in the Anthropocene II. Ecological Modernity in Japan III. The Natural World as Exhibition PART ONE The Nature of Civilization CHAPTER ONE: Japan's Animal Kingdom: The Origins of Ecological Modernity and the Birth of the Zoo I. Bringing Politics to Life II. Sorting Animals Out in Meiji Japan III. Animals in the Exhibitionary Complex IV. The Ueno Zoo V. Ishikawa Chiyomatsu and the Evolution of Exhibition VI. Bigot's Japan CHAPTER TWO: The Dreamlife of Imperialism: Commerce, Conquest, and the Naturalization of Ecological Modernity I. The Dreamlife of Empire II. The Nature of Empire III. Nature Behind Glass IV. Backstage at the Zoo V. The Illusion of Liberty VI. Imperial Trophies VII. Imperial Nature PART TWO The Culture of Total War CHAPTER THREE: Military Animals: The Zoological Gardens and the Culture of Total War I. Military Animals II. Mobilizing the Animal World III. The Eye of the Tiger IV. Animal Soldiers V. Horse Power CHAPTER FOUR: The Great Zoo Massacre I. Tokyo, 1943 II. A Strange Sort of Ceremony III. Mass-Mediated Sacrifice IV. The Taxonomy of a Massacre V. The Killing Floor VI. And Then There Were Two PART THREE After Empire CHAPTER FIVE: The Children's Zoo: Elephant Ambassadors and Other Creatures of the Allied Occupation I. Bambi Goes to Tokyo II. Empire After Empire III. Neo-Colonial Potlatch IV. Animal Kindergarten V. Occupied Japan's Elephant Mania VI. Elephant Ambassadors CHAPTER SIX: Pandas in the Anthropocene: Japan's Panda Boom and the Limits of Ecological Modernity I. The Panda Boom II. The Science of Charisma III. Panda Diplomacy IV. Living Stuffed Animals V. The Biotechnology of Cute EPILOGUE: The Sorrows of Ecological Modernity Notes Bibliography Indext

Reviews

The book provides a rich canvas for a variety of cross-cultural comparisons. * Monumenta Nipponica * It is difficult to find fault with Miller's carefully researched, elegantly written, and convincingly argued monograph. * East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine * This is a path-breaking contribution to the history of science, environmental history, and Japanese history. * Journal of Japanese Studies * The Nature of Beasts is a critical intervention in global zoo, environmental and Japanese histories. It stands on its own as a fascinating and thoughtful history, but also provides opportunities for future scholarly exploration into patterns of human dominion over nature across the East Asian world. * Pacific Affairs * Makes an important contribution to our understanding of how governments outside of the United States and Europe have used zoo animals to further political goals. * American Historical Review * A rich political and cultural history of modern Japan. * Cross-Currents * The Nature of the Beasts is a model of interdisciplinary environmental history and a must-read for anyone interested in the politics of the modern zoo. * Enviromental History * A triumph. . . .archival richness. . . .analytic dexterity and elegant writing. * Times Literary Supplement *

Author Information

Ian Jared Miller teaches Japanese history at Harvard University.

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