| Book Review | The Western Historical Quarterly, 39.4

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| Book Review | The Western Historical Quarterly, 39.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Anthropology Goes to the Fair: The 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition. Critical Studies in the History of Anthropology. By Nancy J. Parezo and Don D. Fowler. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007. xiv + 538 pp. Illustrations, maps, tables, appendices, notes, bibliography, index. $55.00; CAN$68.75; £31.00.)

In their exhaustive study, Anthropology Goes to the Fair, Nancy Parezo and Don Fowler demonstrate the importance of the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition (LPE) in St. Louis in assessing the place of anthropology in American cultural, intellectual, and racial thought at the turn of the last century. At the center of this analysis is W. J. McGee, director of the Anthropology Department, whose hierarchical vision of cultural-racial types along an evolutionary scale shaped static and living displays. Parezo and Fowler chart the logistical and financial strains impeding the work of McGee and the other organizers, which McGee later blamed for the failure of his grandiose plans. They illustrate McGee's intentions to create what he believed were educational and authentic displays, not exotic curiosities, in order to reinvigorate his professional standing. But, ultimately, his reliance on pseudo-scientific theories and stereotypical constructions hindered the ability of fairgoers to differentiate between the anthropological villages, the Filipino Reservation, and the Pike (the amusement zone of the fair).

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