LIFE ON DISPLAY: REVOLUTIONIZING U.S. MUSEUMS OF SCIENCE AND NATURAL HISTORY IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Book ID/图书代码： 13560016B87984

English Summary/英文概要： Rich with archival detail and compelling characters, Life on Display uses the history of biological exhibitions to analyze museums’ shifting roles in twentieth-century American science and society. Karen A. Rader and Victoria E. M. Cain chronicle profound changes in these exhibitions—and the institutions that housed them—between 1910 and 1990, ultimately offering new perspectives on the history of museums, science, and science education.

Rader and Cain explain why science and natural history museums began to welcome new audiences between the 1900s and the 1920s and chronicle the turmoil that resulted from the introduction of new kinds of biological displays. They describe how these displays of life changed dramatically once again in the 1930s and 1940s, as museums negotiated changing, often conflicting interests of scientists, educators, and visitors. The authors then reveal how museum staffs, facing intense public and scientific scrutiny, experimented with wildly different definitions of life science and life science education from the 1950s through the 1980s. The book concludes with a discussion of the influence that corporate sponsorship and blockbuster economics wielded over science and natural history museums in the century’s last decades.

A vivid, entertaining study of the ways science and natural history museums shaped and were shaped by understandings of science and public education in the twentieth-century United States, Life on Display will appeal to historians, sociologists, and ethnographers of American science and culture, as well as museum practitioners and general readers.

Chinese Summary/中文概要： 《流动的展品》一书例证充分、史料详细，利用生物展览历史分析了博物馆在20世纪美国科学与社会中所扮演的角色的转变。作者Karen A. Rader 和 Victoria E. M. Cain根据年代顺序罗列了1910至1990年期间这些展览中深刻的变化以及展出这些展品的场馆，最终为博物馆、科学及科学教育史提供了全新的视角。

Rader 和 Cain解释了为何科学和自然历史博物馆在20世纪初至20世纪20年代开始欢迎新的观众，并且按照时间顺序列举了由于引进新品种的生物展品而导致的骚乱……该书的结尾探讨了企业赞助与流行经济对科学及自然历史博物馆的影响。

作为一本对20世纪美国科学与自然历史博物馆演变的生动、有趣的研究类读物，《流动的展品》对历史学家、社会学家、博物馆工作人员以及大众读者来说均有很大的吸引力。(LYR)

Awards/获奖情况：“自从20世纪起，纽约美国自然历史博物馆中精致的模型吸引了大批的观众，但正如历史学家Karen Rader 和Victoria Cain 在本研究中所揭露的，这些仅仅是广泛变革的一部分。“寓教于乐者”与严肃类博物馆研究员之间背后的斗争仍旧颇为复杂。”——Barbara Kiser Nature

“本书聚焦19世纪后期至21世纪初期美国科学与自然博物馆的演变，针对历史提出了一些列令人惊讶的见解。”——Kirk R. Johnson Science

“Rader 和 Cain的新书按照时间顺序列举了现代美国科学教育与文化史上的变革……本书同时提出了一个观点，即美国自然与科学博物馆的展览、研究、教育之间关系的重新谈判。这是一本非常精彩、有趣的历史读物。”——Carla Nappi

“作者Rader 和 Cain利用丰富、广泛的自然历史与科学博物馆研究记录探讨了博物馆专业人士之间辩论的话题。本书是对博物馆类文献非常棒的补充。”——CHOICE

"The exquisite dioramas in New York’s American Museum of Natural History have wowed crowds since the early twentieth century. But as historians Karen Rader and Victoria Cain reveal in this cogent study, they were part of a broader revolution: the ’New Museum Idea,’ which saw ’smell machines’ and dynamic models supersede dusty cases. The behind-the-scene struggles between ‘edutainers’ and serious museum researchers were, they show, no less dynamic." (Barbara Kiser Nature)

"Focuses on the evolution of U.S. science and nature museums from the late 19th century to the early 21st century, stitching together a number of surprising insights into an excellent history." (Kirk R. Johnson Science)

"In lucid prose that’s a real pleasure to read, Rader and Cain’s new book chronicles a revolution in modern American science education and culture. . . . Life on Displaysimultaneously develops an argument for a ’renegotiation of the relationship between display, research, and education in American museums of nature and science,’ and opens up an archive of fascinating (and at times hilarious and moving) stories of members of the museum-going public (some of who gifted dog fleas and dead pets to their local museums), non-human inhabitants of interactive museum displays (including an owl with a penchant for riding in cars and ’trim, up-on-their-toes cockroaches’), and museum professionals who painted, debated, made dioramas, invented ’Exploratoria,’ and occasionally wrote limericks. This is a book for anyone interested in American history, museum studies, visual culture, science studies, the history of education, grasshopper surgery, or Jurassic Park (among many, many other fields it contributes to). It’s a wonderfully engaging history." (Carla Nappi New Books in Science, Technology, and Society)

"Rader and Cain utilize a rich, wide-ranging set of institutional records from various natural history/science museums to examine the debates among museum professionals. As such, this is a valuable addition to the institutional record of debates over the mission of museums in democratic society. The prose is well structured, and the authors’ chronological approach to framing this narrative makes the argument clear. An excellent addition to the growing literature on museums. Essential."(CHOICE)

About the Author/作者介绍： Karen A. Rader是美国弗吉尼亚联邦大学历史系副教授；Victoria E. M. Cain 是美国东北大学历史系助理教授。

Karen A. Rader is associate professor in the Department of History at Virginia Commonwealth University. Victoria E. M. Cain is assistant professor in the Department of History at Northeastern University.

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Rights Status/版权销售情况：Simplified Chinese/简体中文：SOLD

Complex/Traditional Chinese/繁体中文：AVAILABLE

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