Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads

Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads
Author: Stephen T. Asma
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 319
Release: 2003-05-01
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0199839123


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The natural history museum is a place where the line between "high" and "low" culture effectively vanishes--where our awe of nature, our taste for the bizarre, and our thirst for knowledge all blend happily together. But as Stephen Asma shows in Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads, there is more going on in these great institutions than just smart fun. Asma takes us on a wide-ranging tour of natural history museums in New York and Chicago, London and Paris, interviewing curators, scientists, and exhibit designers, and providing a wealth of fascinating observations. We learn how the first museums were little more than high-toned side shows, with such garish exhibits as the pickled head of Peter the Great's lover. In contrast, today's museums are hot-beds of serious science, funding major research in such fields as anthropology and archaeology. "Rich in detail, lucid explanation, telling anecdotes, and fascinating characters.... Asma has rendered a fascinating and credible account of how natural history museums are conceived and presented. It's the kind of book that will not only engage a wide and diverse readership, but it should, best of all, send them flocking to see how we look at nature and ourselves in those fabulous legacies of the curiosity cabinet."--The Boston Herald.


Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads
Language: en
Pages: 319
Authors: Stephen T. Asma
Categories: Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2003-05-01 - Publisher: Oxford University Press

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The natural history museum is a place where the line between "high" and "low" culture effectively vanishes--where our awe of nature, our taste for the bizarre,
Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads
Language: en
Pages: 302
Authors:
Categories: Natural history
Type: BOOK - Published: 2001 - Publisher:

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Stuffed Animals & Pickled Heads
Language: en
Pages: 0
Authors: Stephen T. Asma
Categories: Natural history
Type: BOOK - Published: 2023 - Publisher:

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This volume traces the cultural history of natural history museums from their origins in the 18th century through the present day, by tracing the changing attit
Against Fairness
Language: en
Pages: 220
Authors: Stephen T. Asma
Categories: Business & Economics
Type: BOOK - Published: 2013 - Publisher: University of Chicago Press

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A polymath philosopher shares lighthearted examples of humanity's unspoken instinct toward favoritism to argue against zealous pursuits of fairness.
On Monsters
Language: en
Pages: 369
Authors: Stephen T. Asma
Categories: Body, Mind & Spirit
Type: BOOK - Published: 2011-09 - Publisher: Oxford University Press

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"A comprehensive modern-day bestiary."--The New Yorker