1/5/2014 The Human Zoo: Science's Dirty Secret - Series 1 - Episode 1 - The Human Zoo: Science's Dirty Secret

's Dirty Secret - Channel 4

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The Human Zoo: Science's

Dirty Secret

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Episode Guide
Only one hundred years ago, many of the
world's leading scientists agreed with A. C.
Haddon, when he wrote in his 1898 book Study
of Man, that, "on the whole, the white race
has progressed beyond the black race."

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, scientists

were so fascinated by race that thousands of
'exotic' and indigenous people from all over the
world were put on display in human zoos. They were not intended as merely entertaining freak
shows but also scientific demonstrations of racial difference. Across the western world millions
gawped in fascination at these 'uncivilised savages' and would depart convinced of the
superiority of the white race.

This documentary explores the phenomenon of human zoos and tells the poignant story of Ota
Benga, a Batwa pygmy from the Belgian Congo, who was first put on display at the 1904 St Louis
World's Fair and then the Bronx Zoo where he was labelled as the 'missing link'.
As the film reveals, it was only a short step from these human zoos to the horrors of Nazi
Germany as pseudo science that underpinned one, helped legitimise the other.

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