The history of the American zoo and the history of mid-twentieth-century urban renovation are relatively well known. Rarely, however, have the two been studied in parallel and their intimate connections closely interrogated. In her fascinating book, Lisa Uddin marries these two distinct historiographies to explore the evolution of US zoos in the 1960s and 1970s. Focussing on two key institutions, the National Zoo in Washington, DC and San Diego's Wild Animal Park, Zoo Renewal charts the changing face of zoological exhibits in American zoos and situates this within a wider context of urban decline and renovation. Uddin devotes particular attention to the racial dynamics underlying both processes and the ways in which “feathered, furry, scaly, slimy and microscopic creatures” (17) shaped urban life.

In the 1960s and 1970s, US zoos started to come in for growing criticism. The minimalist concrete cages that came into fashion in the 1930s no longer met understandings of animal needs and zoologists and animal-welfare campaigners condemned the lack of environmental stimulation available to the animals. Uddin opens her book with a survey of some of these critiques, focussing in particular on the writings of zoologist Desmond Morris, the unsettling photographs of Garry Winogrand and Peter Batten's searing exposé of mistreatment of zoo animals in Living Trophies (1976). She emphasizes the linguistic and visual parallels between these negative perceptions of animal accommodation and contemporary critiques of the urban environment, which also propagated a narrative of decay and decline. Morris, for instance, referred to many enclosures as “scruffy little animal slums,” while Winogrand's photographs depicted both humans and animals engaged in unnatural interactions, from a boy pointing a toy gun at a bear to an elephant reaching over the side of its concrete den to pick up food from the ground outside. Uddin suggests that movements to reform decrepit – and increasingly nonwhite – city downtowns operated in parallel with efforts to improve conditions for zoo animals and the people who went to see them.

The second and third chapters of Zoo Renewal explore how this renovation drive played out in Washington's National Zoo. In chapter 2, Uddin examines the measures taken to modernize the zoo in the 1960s and 1970s, noting the new forms of architecture employed in the animal enclosures and the greater attention paid to accommodating the habits and needs of the animals. The chapter draws interesting parallels between the renovation programme at the zoo and concurrent efforts to regenerate central Washington. It also shows persuasively how community reactions to the death of a little white toddler in the lions’ den both crystallized the modernization project and brought to the surface broader tensions surrounding the management of the animals, the behaviour of the (largely white) zoo-going public, and the alleged negligence of the (mostly Afro-American) keepers.

Chapter 3 focusses on one of the National Zoo's most prized animals, the white tiger Mohini. Acquired in 1960, Mohini became something of a mascot for the zoo, her whiteness, exoticism and rarity constituting a major part of her appeal. White animals had long fascinated the zoo-going public – in the 1880s, for instance, thousands had flocked to see Barnum's white elephant, Toung Taloung. Uddin explores the source of this fascination and suggests that in the 1960s it chimed in part with white zoo-goers’ fears about their own “endangerment” within an increasingly nonwhite downtown environment. She also shows, however, how attempts to breed further white cubs from Mohini resulted in failure, with many of her offspring suffering from genetic defects. Mohini's image as a pristine white animal thus conflicted with her ineffective role as a mother, raising broader fears about “white reproductive fitness” (155).

The second half of the book shifts the focus to another major American zoo: the San Diego Wild Animal Park. Situated on the outskirts of the city, the San Diego Zoo was designed as a site for animal conservation and human relaxation, a large open space where people and animals could escape the decline of the urban centre. Uddin explores parallels between the appeal and architecture of Californian suburban living and the design and function of the zoo, noting, for instance, intriguing parallels between the typical suburban house and some of the animal accommodation in the park. In the final chapter, she also interrogates the zoo's self-assigned role as a haven for endangered species, focussing on its most iconic inmate, the white rhino, and discussing the broader racial politics of endangerment.

Zoo Renewal is a thought-provoking and original book which forces us to rethink the relationship between zoos and human environments. Traditional zoo histories often present zoos as heterotopias, insulated sites that are somehow divorced from the cities around them. Uddin pushes beyond this more insular approach to show, on the contrary, how zoos were intimately connected to the societies and cities in which they developed, and in turn reflected and paralleled broader social and racial issues. At the same time, she helps us to see zoos, and cities more widely, as multispecies environments, where humans and animals came together to shape the contours of urban life.