Africans on Stage: Studies in Ethnological Show Business

Rating:
Summary: Superb combination of thought-provoking essays.
Review: Berth Lindfors has done an impressive job, cover to cover. There is a sucker born every minute, and unfortunately a great number of individuals are unwillingly caught up in the trade that allows showpeople to sell their tickets. This book shows how a variety of human "specimens" have been treated like animals to sell world's fairs, circuses, etc.

The authors fall short of mentioning that animals have been treated like animals too -- for example, the Bronx Zoo's exhibition of a San tribesmember in a cage with an orang-utan was demeaning for both the former and the latter. But the book shows us in a striking way the problematic nature of the human obsession with cages and the spectacle.

Excellent study of the dynamic of racism, sexism, imperialist greed, and the roots of prejudice.