Animalia is a collection of short, illustrated chapters that explores historical relationships between diverse animals (mostly mammals) and people, mostly inhabiting the British Empire during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Editors Burton and Mawani intend to show how animals both extended and disrupted the power of imperial Britain. By using an A to Z bestiary form, they create a structure that both conjures and questions the taxonomies developed by European scientists working in imperial settings, as well as didactic texts about animals to disseminate an imperial imaginary among Anglophone readers, young and old. The editors encourage readers to “dip in and out” of the volume by following inserted cross-references or by whim, guidance that this reviewer followed after reading the volume’s clear and concise introduction (17).
Animalia strives to be interdisciplinary not only in the theories and empirical evidence found in the individual contributions but also in the hybrid form...