World War Zoos: Humans and Other Animals in the Deadliest Conflict of the Modern Age

"John Kinder proposes nothing less than a new history of World War II, told through the lens of zoos. On the most basic level, some wartime zoo animals were cherished; some were abandoned; and some were eaten by desperate people. Yet zoos also provide a vital, raw, and kaleidoscopic window onto human nature in wartime. They shed light on the evolution of the zoo as an institution, too, particularly after the war, and show how people's relationships with zoos has changed, and continues to change, with time. Zoos, after all, remain omnipresent, as do wars"--