Customer Reviews

The Tower Menagerie: The Amazing 600-Year History of the Royal Collection of Wild and Ferocious Beasts Kept at the Tower of London

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This isn't really a book about a zoo. Amazingly, it's more of a trip through various years of human history with the zoo as a recurring reference. Daniel Hahn manages to weave in and out of people, ideas and events and pulls them together in a way you wish your history teacher had done back at school.

In a sprightly fashion, we get a complete picture of six centuries of human development and man's relationship with animals. This is done through various stories linking culture, science and politics.

As a quick sample: we learn how John Wesley had flute music played to the animals to determine if they had a soul; we cover the continuous links between lions and the British monarchy; there is political intrigue and concern at Darwin's theory of evolution; and we find out the origin of bull and bear stock markets.

This brings me to, what I call, the information-on-the-side in this book, which acts as a wonderful source of interest. Daniel Hahn gives Oliver Sacks a run for his money with his fascinating asides and footnotes and then wins hands-down by making them some of the funniest things ever written.

This book is a delight from start to finish. It's thoughtful, fascinating and packed with history, insight and wonderful observations. I urge you to read it - you'll love it!

Funn. The animals and the characters each seem to have a personality. Different periods of history without allowing hte book to drag. Famous people are woven seemlesly into a consistent story.

Daniel Hahn's The Tower Menagerie: The Amazing 600-Year History of the Royal Collection of Wild and Ferocious Beasts Kept at the Tower of London is a fascinating look at a little known but highly interesting slice of history. Hahn is not a professional historian and the book reflects that, but at the same time he has put together a very readable account on a subject that crosses a number of historical, scientific and cultural threads.

It was difficult to decide how many stars to give this book. I was tempted to give it only 3 stars as I felt it lacked the thoroughness that a professional historian would have shown, but at the same time I was also tempted to give it 5 stars for sheer uniqueness; there is, to my knowledge, only one other book dedicated solely to the topic of the Tower of London's menagerie, and that book is out of print. I settled on 4 stars for being readable, informative and in many places highly entertaining.

Hahn may be forgiven for some of the book's spotty coverage on parts of the menagerie's medieval period as he, like any other researcher, can only research what was actually written and there are precious few resources to consult on the subject for that period. Hence the book's tendency towards an anecdotal style. That said, however, the book is filled with fascinating anecdotes that in themselves reveal a lot about the times the menagerie passed through, from the bizarre beliefs that people once held (that unicorns and dragons were as real as rhinos and giraffes, that elephants could only drink wine in the winter, that ostriches lived on a diet of nails), to the use of menageries as displays of royal and national prestige, and later, to the growth of what would ultimately be the public entertainment industry.

To give you an idea of the kind of anecdotes you'll find in this book, this one deals with the gift of a polar bear to England's Henry III by the king of Norway:

"This unprecendentedly awkward gift arrived in London with its keeper in the autumn of 1252. And... it certainly lost no time in capturing the attention and imagination of the people of the city. At first the sherriffs of the City of London were asked (told) to provide money towards the animal's food and keep... but after a year or so of this expense... the people of London were wisely instructed to invest in a muzzle, chain and rope, so that the animal could be kept on the bank of the Thames and could fish for his own food.
-- Along with the animal's new fishing outfit, the sheriffs paid for a thick wrap for his devoted keeper, who was expected to accompany him into the Thames on his fishing expeditions (quite why remains a mystery); on less energetic days the bear could always fish from his place on the bank, doubtless to the relief of his put-upon companion.
-- Foreign visitors coming to London for diplomacy or trade in the mid-thirteenth century, approaching by boat as most did, would have seen an extraordinary spectacle as they reached the Pool of London:... a large polar bear sitting lazily in the sun, casually pawing salmon out of the water."

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of menageries, zoos, historical attitudes and knowledge regarding animals, royal pasttimes and entertainments, and of course the Tower of London and the many different functions it served. I would like to see a more thorough work on the subject be done someday, but for now, this book will serve as a good and entertaining introduction.

As a zoo volunteer and zoo fanatic, I was drawn to this book. The story itself (the keeping of wild animals in the Tower of London) is interesting if you are into zoos and the like (as I am). However, the writing style is a bit dry. It is not too difficult or technical, just not very engaging. As someone else has said, it is a bit meandering (strays easily into side topics).

If you are interested in the history of zoos, I think you will find this book worthwhile (as I did). But if you are not especially interested in zoo history or London history and are just looking for a good read, I would suggest you look elsewhere.

While the book was chock-full of the kinds of trivia I like, the writing style was so annoying I could only read it in fits and starts. The author is much too fond of parentheses by half, inserting them (like so) into every paragraph (as many as three apiece) which is immensely irritating (in my opinion).

An example of an author ruining an otherwise fascinating book by interrupting themselves with too many footnotes, parentheses and tangents. Aspiring writers will learn more from the style mistakes than the subject matter.

That aside, The Tower Menagerie is illustrative and entertaining. There is a certain sense of glee that comes from books like that as the reader gets many of the benefits and fun that come with exotic animals without any of the danger. For instance, the polar bear that ate its breakfast from the Thames each morning or the lions citizens thoughts to 200-300 years old. The book is a bit outdated - it doesn't mention the piles of animal bones (including a few lions) archaeologists discovered buried in moat around the Tower but is otherwise worth picking up from a 3rd Party seller for a few dollars.

Apparently the author had an inspirational idea for a story...Problem apparently is that there simply aren't enough records / detailed accounts to create a book based on this topic. How much time did the writer spend researching this book? Even anecdotal evidence is severely limited. The information is meandering, sometimes frustrating in its lack of relation to the supposed theme of the book. Out of the entire book, only two references to actual animal anecdotes were interesting. How disappointing.

This is certainly not the most compelling of books. I rather doubt that many people have lain awake at night, tormented at their ignorance about the history of the proto-zoo that used to be kept at the Tower of London. Nevertheless, if you really MUST know the background of the royal collection, this is where you should turn to.

The problem is, there are about 15 unique facts to be uncovered about the menagerie, because of such records as still exist, apparently most are in the vein of "Dear Diary: Today I fed the lions, as I did yesterday and the day before and the day before that." There are some striking anecdotes and incidents here and there, and we learn that your medieval types were fairly certain that elephants drank nothing but wine and ostriches loved to eat iron. The high mortality rate amongst the animals should therefore not be surprising.

As a general survey of the changing attitudes towards zoos and the care of captive animals, this is a mildly interesting book. But it really comes across as an expanded research paper by a wiseacre college student in a sophomore literature class. It's exceptionally casually written with a very informal and chatty tone. Probably a precursor of the kind of scholarship that we can expect from the upcoming MySpace generation. At any rate, if you stumble across it and need to kill a couple of hours, it's okay, but otherwise I'd skip it.