The history of the zoological garden has received considerable scholarly interest over the past two decades or so. In particular the nineteenth-century zoo appeals to historians of science, but also to scholars looking at the rise of bourgeois culture and its institutions. The zoo is situated at the crossroads of several discourses, disciplines and developments, a hybrid space between scientific research, acclimatization efforts and entertainment; between upper-class sociability and emerging mass culture; between imperial networks and the construction of ‘untamed nature’ at home.

This growing scholarship has been enriched by two excellent studies on the display of exotic animals in nineteenth-century Britain. The authors do not seem to be aware of each other's work but had they collaborated they could have hardly divided up the work better. Takashi Ito only deals with the London Zoo in its first three decades (1828–1859), while Helen Cowie's scope is far broader. She looks at zoological gardens in Britain in general and at travelling menageries – a key aspect of her book. Hence there is very little overlap.

Ito's account is steeped in the source material of the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) that runs the London Zoo. A leitmotiv of his book is the continuous conflicts within the membership of the ZSL. The landed gentry interested in breeding useful and/or ornamental animals and the more scientifically minded zoologists interested in taxonomy wrangled over decades. And who is the zoo for? For distinguished members only or the public at large? Debates about the admission policy are legion in the 1830s and 1840s.

As Ito argues, these discussions formed part of a much larger development in cultural politics in which the zoo ‘managed to create its own niche’ (p. 7) and in a sense led the way – followed by museums of art and natural history – for the large public to become ‘a potential recipient of culture’ (p. 90). The question of what these new institutions such as the zoo were actually for – research, education or entertainment – remained contested.

In Ito's account the secretary of the ZSL, David Mitchell, an otherwise little-known ornithologist, emerges as the central figure in the late 1840s and the 1850s. In order to overcome the persistent financial problems – the book is also impressive in presenting quantitative sources such as budgets – Mitchell provided more spectacle in order to attract a paying public. ‘As various rumours and stories emerged for public consumption, the zoo became a narrative space’ (p. 122). Yet this commercial success threatened the tax-exemption granted to the ZSL as a voluntary association, which was eventually revoked in 1854.

Ito then moves on to question the trope of ‘the zoo in the age of empire’ as too simplistic. Analysing the acquisition of giraffes by the London Zoo he shows that many of the actors involved in the catch and transport of the animals actually did not form part of the British imperial network. (Cowie too stresses the ‘transnational’ character of the animal trade, e.g. the important role of indigenous people as informants, catchers and keepers.) In the 1850s Mitchell attempted to acclimatize pheasants from the Himalayas in the Scottish Highlands – so they could be hunted by British gentlemen. The venture was doomed (i.e. the birds succumbed) due to the various practical problems of animal keeping. This failure is exemplary for the flagging acclimatization efforts of the mid-nineteenth century, lacking ‘any strong theoretical basis or powerful advocate’, let alone an appealing success story (p. 159). In sum Ito provides us with a superb account of the first three decades of the London Zoo becoming a cultural institution in its own right, ‘a powerful story-telling device’, yet not a major research centre. His book is well written and exemplary in the use of sources to achieve a fine-tuned analysis without getting bogged down in details – not to speak of some fantastic illustrations in colour.

Both Ito and Cowie's books excel in one particular respect: historians of zoos and museums often lament that very little, if anything at all, can be said about the visitors of these institutions due to the lack of sources. Ito and Cowie show that you just have to look hard enough. By systematically combing through diaries, travel journals and letters an impressive array of visitors emerges, in Ito's case they range from Michael Faraday, female aristocrats and the footman William Tayler; to Indian naval architects; to Persian princes. Cowie's account, I imagine, would not have been possible without the digitalization of the British periodic press in the nineteenth century. She cites an enormous variety of newspapers and journals, which no human being can browse through in any reasonable time without an automated search function. Both Ito and Cowie demonstrate the often idiosyncratic ways in which the public interpreted and visually consumed exotic animals. Much more interested in ‘the antics of the monkeys' rather than zoological systematics, this ‘was not the curious and intellectually engaged visitor imagined by zoo directors' (Cowie, p. 115).

Cowie's first chapter is on the London Zoo, while the remainder of the book deals with the exhibition of exotic animals in provincial Britain, both in zoos and in menageries, and that is the real forte of her book. Like Ito, Cowie situates the flourishing of exotic animal shows in a broader cultural context and assesses its appeal across the social classes. She covers all the relevant aspects: the international animal trade, the local civic pride in having a zoo, the changing practices of display, the harsh fate of the animals and the experience of the visitors.

Cowie always tries to look at both the crude reality of exhibiting animals, with its harrowing death toll, and the rhetoric of rational recreation surrounding it. Zoos tried to present themselves as a more respectable and morally superior institution, in order to discredit the allegedly sensationalist menageries. Yet both in their advertising and in their treatment of animals, the permanent and the itinerant displays of exotic animals did not differ all that much. Menageries had to tread a fine line between offering enticing attractions and the limits of middle-class sensibilities. Just like the zoos they did not tire of trumpeting the instructive and educational potential of their shows.

The dialectic of reality and rhetoric proves to be insightful. Accidents during menagerie performances were no exception, or so it seemed. Lions bit off limbs of tamers but also of overtly curious, inattentive or drunk visitors. Cowie argues that this bloody toll was in the end rather good publicity for the menageries, creating numerous newspaper reports (including fabricated ones) and thus attracting larger crowds. While questions of access and acceptable behaviour of the public bring issues of class to the fore, the figure of the keeper, and even more so of the animal tamer (some were black, some female), allows Cowie to discuss the public negotiation of cultural stereotypes of race and gender.

Cowie asks throughout, how did the perception, understanding and sensibility towards animals change in the course of the nineteenth century? By and large she identifies an increase in empathy and compassion. Cruelty towards animals, in the form of animal fighting but also animal shows, became less and less acceptable. The maltreatment certainly did not necessarily subside but was concealed better. Cowie detects a discursive shift from focusing on man – somebody who tortures an animal must be a degenerate human being – to the well-being of the creatures themselves. A long process, to be sure. Exhibiting Animals in Nineteenth-Century Britain is an insightful book – and full of good stories.