Baratay, Eric

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Baratay, Eric

PERSONAL: Male.

ADDRESSES: Office—University Jean Lyon 3 Mill-15, quay Claude Bernard, 69007 Lyon, France. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Reaktion Books, 79 Farringdon Road, London ECIM 3JU, England.

CAREER: University Jean Mill de Lyon, Lyon, France, professor of modern history.

MEMBER: Institute of History of Christianity (RESEA).

WRITINGS:

La corrida, Presse Universitaire de France (Paris, France), 1995.

Le père Joseph Rey et l'enfance d'favorisée: Une expérience d'insertion au XIXe siècle, Beauschesne (Paris, France), 1996.

L'église de l'animal: France, XVIIe-XXe siècle, Cerf (Paris, France), 1996.

(With Elisabeth Hardouin-Fugier) Zoos: histoire des jardins zoologiques en occident (XVIe-XXe siècle), La Découverte (Paris, France), 1998, translation by Oliver Welsh published as Zoo: A History of Zoological Gardens in the West, Reaktion Books (London, England), 2002.

Et l'homme créa l'animal: histoire d'une condition, Odile Jacob (Paris, France), 2003.

(Co-editor) L'animal en politique, L'Harmattan (Paris, France), 2003.

Editor, special edition of Cahiers d'histoire, 1997.

SIDELIGHTS: A professor of contemporary history based in Lyon, France, Eric Baratay has long specialized in the relationships between humans and animals, whether this relationship takes the form of the bullfight, the domestication of animals, the representation of animals in art, the role of animals in religions, or the creation and maintenance of zoos. That 600 million people visited some 1,100 zoos around the world in 1995—a greater number than those attending cultural or sporting events—prompted Baratay and Elisabeth Hardounin-Fugier to collaborate on a sociological study of the zoological garden, as zoos were once called. In Zoo: A History of Zoological Gardens in the West the authors examine how people's perceptions of wild animals have changed over time. The book breaks the narrative into chronological periods: "The Passion for Collecting (1500s to 1700s)," "The Need for Control (1800s)," and "The Yearning for Nature (1900s)." As the authors explain in their introduction, "It is our hope to shed light on humanity's view of wild animals in the context of the zoological garden, approached as a perfect laboratory, while considering the concepts, customs and intellectual interactions relevant to the history of zoos, in an effort to understand why human beings keep wild species near them in enclosed spaces, and why these spaces are so attractive to the curious."

With its compelling subject and some 400 illustrations, Zoo caught the attention of reviewers on both sides of the Atlantic. An Archictectural Science Reviewcritic called it "an eminently readable book containing a wealth of interesting information," Architectural Review critic Gavin Stamp, an "admirable and thought-provoking book," and Robert Harwitt of San Francisco Chronicle, a "curiously engaging, provocative and confounding tome" and a "magnificent panoply of art." Spectator's Yann Martel offered more qualified approval of this "good book," adding, "The style is somewhat academic—flat and factual—but the authors convey much information and the illustrations are lavish."

A number of reviewers complained about what they considered to be sloppiness in the handling of details and a poor translation from the French text. For example, in International Zoo News, Herman Reichenbach called the "basic weakness of the book" that the authors "gave little concern to getting their animals right," which he considered a "nonchalant approach to details" that is reflected in other areas of the work as well. In the Birmingham Post reviewer Martin Faint summed up Zoo, "Packed with bizarre anecdotes and sporting an entertaining turn of phrase, they have produced a fantastic study which wholly supports their curious notion that 'every aspect of humanity's relationship with nature can be perceived through the bars of a zoological garden.'"