| International Standard Book Number |
9781324065685 ePub ebook
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| International Standard Book Number |
9781324065678 hardback
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| International Standard Book Number |
1324065672 hardback
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| Personal Name |
Lunde, Darrin P., author.
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| Title Statement |
Palace of deception : museum men and the rise of scientific racism / Darrin Lunde.
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| Edition Statement |
First edition.
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| Production, Publication, Distribution, Manufacture, and Copyright Notice |
New York, NY : W.W. Norton & Company, 2025.
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| Physical Description |
xxii, 266 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm.
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| Bibliography, Etc. Note |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
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| Formatted Contents Note |
Museum men. Enter the king -- Protestant evolution -- Shouldn't he be put away? -- Tooth and claw -- Elephants in the room -- Born to explore -- Number nine -- Life missions. The romance of natural history -- A little eye gleaming revenge -- Terra firma -- Mad dashes. The great race -- Monkey in the middle -- New conquest -- Murder on the montain -- The age of man -- The Gobi Dessert -- Snake eyes -- The most beautiful place -- Epilogue: a magnificent old devil.
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| Summary, Etc. |
"From 1908 to 1933, the American Museum of Natural History launched more scientific field expeditions than at any other time in its existence. Sponsoring lavish trips to Africa and Central Asia, the museum filled its halls with artifacts and an aura of adventure, supported by some of New York City's most prominent men, including Theodore Roosevelt and J. P. Morgan. All the while, the museum's then president, Henry Fairfield Osborn, attempted to use his adventurers' expeditions to fulfill a personal agenda : to propagate his belief in racial hierarchy. Palace of Deception uncovers the complicated legacyof three iconic figures of the American Museum : the preeminent explorer Roy Chapman Andrews ; Carl Akeley, the pioneering taxidermist who created so many of the museum's most memorable exhibits ; and Osborn, the museum's president, who was once considered an authority on everything from paleontology and evolution to race and eugenics. From Andrews's ambitions searching for fossils in the Gobi Desert to the construction of Akeley's artistic masterpiece, the Hall of African Mammals, Darrin Lunde tells the story of the American's Museum foundational years. Lunde also shows how the achievements of the museum's adventurers were used to introduce residents of New York to a version of the natural world -- one full of strict natural laws and categories -- endorsed by the museum's powerful leader. Based on extensive diaries, letters, journals, and the author's own experiences leading modern-day expeditions to several of the same places, Palace of Deception re-creates some of the most celebrated, globe-trotting journeys from natural history's heyday. It also traces the larger, racially infused milieu that underwrote the golden age of exploration,uncovering the simmering anxieties about race behind the era's greatest adventures. It is a legacy that still haunts natural history institutions today."-- Provided by publisher.
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| Subject-Personal Name |
Osborn, Henry Fairfield, 1857-1935.
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| Subject-Personal Name |
Andrews, Roy Chapman, 1884-1960.
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| Subject-Personal Name |
Akeley, Carl E., 1864-1926.
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| Subject-Corporate Name |
American Museum of Natural History History 20th century.
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| Subject-Corporate Name |
American Museum of Natural History Employees History 20th century.
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| Subject Added Entry - Topical Term |
Natural history museums History 20th century. New York (State) New York
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| Subject Added Entry - Topical Term |
Scientific racism History 20th century.
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| Subject Added Entry - Topical Term |
Natural history museums Employees History 20th century.
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