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"Brilliantly researched and refreshingly original, this study of the Ueno Zoo shows how the human world has been constituted in large part by its engagements with nature and animals—and, conversely, how the zoo reflects larger questions of modernity, desire, violence, and history. Nationalism, empire and colonialism, total war, consumerism, and the culture of capitalism, bio-power and necropolitics, race—readers will be challenged to think about these and other "human" concerns through the supposed garden of nature and animals." —Takashi Fujitani, Dr. David Chu Professor and Director in Asia Pacific Studies, University of Toronto
"In a tumultuous history of the Tokyo Zoo as it has been intertwined with the history of the Japanese nation, Ian Miller reveals the zoo as a site for disciplining subjects and citizens, naturalizing empire, glorifying sacrifice during war, playing out geopolitical rivalries, and spurring mass consumerism. Theoretically sophisticated but accessible and thoroughly engaging, The Nature of the Beasts is an important contribution to our understandings of Japan’s modernization, imperialism, and relationship with the animal world."—William M. Tsutsui, author of Japanese Popular Culture and Globalization
"Miller offers a unique vantage point onto Japan's modern experience. The Nature of the Beasts is deftly and poignantly written. The book is a real gem."—Brett L. Walker, Regents Professor, Montana State University, Bozeman
"The Nature of the Beasts is at once critical, compassionate and profound. The Ueno zoo becomes a stage on which animals, people and nations act out the changing ecological drama of modernity. It is a drama in which we all play a part. We are touched with sorrow by the ritualized sacrifice of majestic animals played out in the culture of total war. This book is a deep reflection on the rise, fall, and transformation of an imperial power and its consequences for the lives of humans and nonhumans alike."—Gregg Mitman, author of Reel Nature: America's Romance with Wildlife on Film
"Ian Miller's compelling book on Japan's foremost zoo makes clear that the cages constructed for nonhuman animals ultimately circumscribe their human captors as well. Japan's modern history, its rise and fall as an imperial power and its postwar place in a world threatened by climate change, are all encapsulated in dramatic events at the Ueno zoological garden."—Julia Adeney Thomas, author of Reconfiguring Modernity: Concepts of Nature in Japanese Political Ideology
List 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
About the author
Ian Jared Miller teaches Japanese history at Harvard University.
Additional text
“The book provides a rich canvas for a variety of cross-cultural comparisons.”
