Awards

• Winner of Winner, DAAD Book Prize of the German Studies Association Finalist, Turku Book Prize of the European Society for Environmental History and the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society.

Overview

"How did the Seregenti become an internationally renowned African conservation site and one of the most iconic destinations for a safari?In this book, Thomas M. Lekan illuminates the controversial origins of this national park by examining how Europe's greatest wildlife conservationist, former Frankfurt Zoo director and Oscar-winning documentarian Bernhard Grzimek, popularized it as a global destination. In the 1950s, Grimzek and his son Michael began a quest to save the Serengeti from modernization and ""overpopulation"" by remaking an imperial game reserve into a gigantic zoo for the earth's last great mammals. Grzimek, well-known to German audiences through his long-running television program, A Place for Animals, used the film Seregenti Shall Not Die to convince ordinary Europeans that they could save nature. Yet their message sidestepped the uncomfortable legacies of German colonial exploitation in the region that had endangered animals and excluded local people. After independence, Grzimek raised funds, brokered diplomatic favors, and convinced German tourists to book travel packages--all to persuade Tanzanian leader Julius Nyerere that wildlife would fuel the young nation's economic development. Grzimek helped Tanzania to create almost a dozen new national parks by 1975, but wooing tourists conflicted with rights of the Maasai and other African communities to inhabit the landscape on their own terms. Grzimek's global priorities eventually clashed with Nyerere's nationalist ones, as a more self-assertive Tanzania resented conservationists' meddling and failed promises.A story that demonstrates the conflicts between international conservation, nature tourism, decolonization, and national sovereignty, Our Gigantic Zoo explores the legacy of the man who portrayed himself as a second Noah, called on a sacred mission to protect the last vestiges of paradise for all humankind."

Full Product Details

Author:   Thomas M. Lekan (Professor of History and Earth, Ocean, and Environment, Professor of History and Earth, Ocean, and Environment, University of South Carolina)
Publisher:   Oxford University Press Inc
Imprint:   Oxford University Press Inc
Dimensions:   Width: 23.90cm , Height: 3.10cm , Length: 16.30cm
Weight:   0.635kg
ISBN:  

9780199843671

ISBN 10:   0199843678
Pages:   348
Publication Date:   09 April 2020
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  College/higher education ,  Professional & Vocational ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order  
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.

Table of Contents

Reviews

Our Gigantic Zoo offers a compelling and readable portrait of Bernhard Grzimek, West Germany's first celebrity animal expert, from his years as a Nazi agricultural expert to his wildlife conservation efforts in Julius Nyerere's Tanzania. Thomas Lekan looks beyond the spectacle of animal television to tell a story about Cold War geopolitics, decolonization, and colonial and post-colonial dispossession. * Andrew Zimmerman, George Washington University * Thomas Lekan's engrossing and highly original book is a history of vicarious West German nature conservation in East Africa during the Cold War years. It is consistently thought-provoking and illuminating on a wide range of issues-the shadow of the Nazi past, neocolonialism, human-animal relations, and eco-tourism. Elegantly organized and very well written, Our Gigantic Zoo is a major achievement. * David Blackbourn, author of The Conquest of Nature: Water, Landscape, and the Making of Modern Germany * In Our Gigantic Zoo, Thomas Lekan adroitly combines biography and history to show how Bernhard Grzimek, Germany's post World War II conservation zealot, created Africa's most iconic national park on the Serengeti plains of northwestern Tanzania. The 'zookeeper,' as Lekan calls him, championed the idea that only by consuming the Serengeti could the German public save it from destruction. Grzimek's vision became reality but only at great cost both to the zookeeper himself and to the dispossessed Tanzanians who lost their home in the name of conservation and tourism. Our Gigantic Zoo is a must read for students and conservation scientists alike. * Chris Conte, author of Highland Sanctuary: Environmental History in Tanzania's Usambara Mountains * Lekan's substantial study of German-led conservationism in East Africa illuminates the vexed relationship between global north environmentalists on one hand and global south citizens and their living spaces on the other. Our Gigantic Zoo challenges us to be vigilant about the complex motifs and possibly devastating impact of environmentalism at a moment of global environmental crisis. The book reminds us that neoliberal capitalism draws on inequalities produced by centuries of domination, and that conservationism is embedded in a larger web of power relations. * Nina Berman, author of Germans on the Kenyan Coast: Land, Charity, and Romance *

Our Gigantic Zoo offers a compelling and readable portrait of Bernhard Grzimek, West Germany's first celebrity animal expert, from his years as a Nazi agricultural expert to his wildlife conservation efforts in Julius Nyerere's Tanzania. Thomas Lekan looks beyond the spectacle of animal television to tell a story about Cold War geopolitics, decolonization, and colonial and post-colonial dispossession. * Andrew Zimmerman, George Washington University * Thomas Lekan's engrossing and highly original book is a history of vicarious West German nature conservation in East Africa during the Cold War years. It is consistently thought-provoking and illuminating on a wide range of issues-the shadow of the Nazi past, neocolonialism, human-animal relations, and eco-tourism. Elegantly organized and very well written, Our Gigantic Zoo is a major achievement. * David Blackbourn, author of The Conquest of Nature: Water, Landscape, and the Making of Modern Germany * In Our Gigantic Zoo, Thomas Lekan adroitly combines biography and history to show how Bernhard Grzimek, Germany's post World War II conservation zealot, created Africa's most iconic national park on the Serengeti plains of northwestern Tanzania. The 'zookeeper,' as Lekan calls him, championed the idea that only by consuming the Serengeti could the German public save it from destruction. Grzimek's vision became reality but only at great cost both to the zookeeper himself and to the dispossessed Tanzanians who lost their home in the name of conservation and tourism. Our Gigantic Zoo is a must read for students and conservation scientists alike. * Chris Conte, author of Highland Sanctuary: Environmental History in Tanzania's Usambara Mountains * Lekan's substantial study of German-led conservationism in East Africa illuminates the vexed relationship between global north environmentalists on one hand and global south citizens and their living spaces on the other. Our Gigantic Zoo challenges us to be vigilant about the complex motifs and possibly devastating impact of environmentalism at a moment of global environmental crisis. The book reminds us that neoliberal capitalism draws on inequalities produced by centuries of domination, and that conservationism is embedded in a larger web of power relations. * Nina Berman, author of Germans on the Kenyan Cost: Land, Charity, and Romance *

Lekan's substantial study of German-led conservationism in East Africa illuminates the vexed relationship between global north environmentalists on one hand and global south citizens and their living spaces on the other. Our Gigantic Zoo challenges us to be vigilant about the complex motifs and possibly devastating impact of environmentalism at a moment of global environmental crisis. The book reminds us that neoliberal capitalism draws on inequalities produced by centuries of domination, and that conservationism is embedded in a larger web of power relations. -- Nina Berman, author of Germans on the Kenyan Coast: Land, Charity, and Romance In Our Gigantic Zoo, Thomas Lekan adroitly combines biography and history to show how Bernhard Grzimek, Germany's post World War II conservation zealot, created Africa's most iconic national park on the Serengeti plains of northwestern Tanzania. The 'zookeeper,' as Lekan calls him, championed the idea that only by consuming the Serengeti could the German public save it from destruction. Grzimek's vision became reality but only at great cost both to the zookeeper himself and to the dispossessed Tanzanians who lost their home in the name of conservation and tourism. Our Gigantic Zoo is a must read for students and conservation scientists alike. -- Chris Conte, author of Highland Sanctuary: Environmental History in Tanzania's Usambara Mountains Thomas Lekan's engrossing and highly original book is a history of vicarious West German nature conservation in East Africa during the Cold War years. It is consistently thought-provoking and illuminating on a wide range of issues--the shadow of the Nazi past, neocolonialism, human-animal relations, and eco-tourism. Elegantly organized and very well written, Our Gigantic Zoo is a major achievement. -- David Blackbourn, author of The Conquest of Nature: Water, Landscape, and the Making of Modern Germany Our Gigantic Zoo offers a compelling and readable portrait of Bernhard Grzimek, West Germany's first celebrity animal expert, from his years as a Nazi agricultural expert to his wildlife conservation efforts in Julius Nyerere's Tanzania. Thomas Lekan looks beyond the spectacle of animal television to tell a story about Cold War geopolitics, decolonization, and colonial and post-colonial dispossession. -- Andrew Zimmerman, George Washington University

Author Information

Thomas M. Lekan is a professor at the University of South Carolina with a joint appointment in the Department of History and the School of the Earth, Ocean and Environment. He is the author of Imagining the Nation in Nature: Landscape Preservation and German Identity, 1885-1945 and the co-editor of Germany's Nature: Cultural Landscapes and Environmental History.

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