Jason Hribal: A Message From Tatiana. www.counterpunch.org (2011-01-19):

My purpose was singular: I wanted to understand history from below. That fall, I took a research seminar on the Gilded Age, and the topic I chose to write about was the Toledo Zoo. It could have ended up being a standard history: the zoo and its directors, their curatorial…

Until the lions have their historians….

As it happens, I am a vegetarian, but I do not believe in philosophical doctrines of animal rights, and I’m not especially keen on the political programs of animal liberationists. But I do think that human treatment of non-human animals is an issue of very serious moral concern, and, as a matter of historical understanding, it’s important to keep in mind that the institutions for corralling and controlling animals have a structure and a history. And understanding the structure and the history isn’t just a matter of human social developments, or how human cultures go about trying to harness blind natural forces. It is a matter of trying to understand what animals have wanted and what they have done.