The Human Zoo

The shocking full story of the “human zoos” that exploited thousands of Indigenous people

In the 19th century, as colonial expansion exposed previously unknown civilizations to the Western gaze, a small group of entrepreneurs, adventurers, and anthropologists created a new form of popular entertainment: “human zoos.” Between 1871 and World War I, more than 20,000 Indigenous people, from Southeast Asia to the far North to the tip of South America, were abducted, coerced, or convinced to appear in these “living habitats,” exhibited to gawking audiences the way animals are today.

Award-winning science writer Shoshi Parks delves into the engrossing and horrifying history of human zoos and their centrality to the early years of anthropology. Human zoos encapsulated the young field’s central intellectual battle between the dominant social Darwinists, who argued societies exist on a scale from savagery to civilization, and Franz Boas, the person who first articulated the idea of cultural relativism.

Telling the stories of Geronimo, Ota Benga, and Ishi, as well as dozens of little-known Indigenous people caught up in the exhibits, Parks not only vividly describes the many tragedies that befell them but also uncovers the inventive ways they pushed back and bargained for power.