A History of Animals in Entertainment,
from Ancient Rome to the 20th Century

What’s it all about?

From the circus amphitheatres of ancient Greece and Rome, to the first travelling dolphin shows in America, Europe and the Far East... From the global trade in wild animals, to the captive chimps and dolphins exploited as tools of war... Through two thousand years of history, The Rose-Tinted Menagerie explores the devastating impact of utilitarian human attitudes towards nature and animals.

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"...Nothing in nature can quite match the wilful viciousness, manipulation and self-aggrandisement displayed by the human mammals who run The Rose-Tinted Menagerie. The setting for William Johnson’s angry book is a small and specialised one: the world of circuses, menageries, safari parks and dolphinaria; of animals as entertainment. But because the animal show is, literally, a dramatisation of our superiority over the animal kingdom, an enactment of little parables of mastery and servitude, it is also a microcosm of our whole relationship with nature..."

~ Richard Mabey, The Independent on Sunday ~

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"A ground-breaking work of great importance..."

~ Tom Regan ~

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"An outstanding investigation..."

~ Naomi Lewis, Books of the Year, The Observer ~