Sign-In
Cart
Palace of Deception: Museum Men and the Rise of Scientific Racism
Audio Book
20th Century United States HistoryGeneral Racism & Ethnic StudiesGeneral World History
Currently unavailable to order
Please enter your email and a message will be sent to you when this product becomes available on our website.
Publisher: Tantor
Published: Jan 6 2026
Language: English
From 1908 to 1933, the American Museum of Natural History launched more scientific field expeditions than at any other time in its existence. Sponsoring lavish trips to Africa and Central Asia, the museum filled its halls with artifacts and an aura of adventure, supported by some of New York City's most prominent men. All the while, the museum's then president, Henry Fairfield Osborn, attempted to use his adventurers' expeditions to fulfill a personal agenda: to propagate his belief in racial hierarchy.
Palace of Deception uncovers the complicated legacy of three iconic figures of the American Museum: the preeminent explorer Roy Chapman Andrews; Carl Akeley, the pioneering taxidermist; and Osborn, the museum's president. Darrin Lunde tells the story of the American's Museum foundational years. Lunde also shows how the achievements of the museum's adventurers were used to introduce residents of New York to a version of the natural world endorsed by the museum's leader.
Palace of Deception recreates some of the most celebrated, globe-trotting journeys from natural history's heyday. It also traces the larger, racially infused milieu that underwrote the golden age of exploration, uncovering the simmering anxieties about race behind the era's greatest adventures. It is a legacy that still haunts natural history institutions today.
Also in
General Racism & Ethnic Studies
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Kendi, Ibram X.
Paperback
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures
Fadiman, Anne
Paperback
In Search of the Black Fantastic: Politics and Popular Culture in the Post-Civil Rights Era
Iton, Richard
Paperback
Born of Lakes and Plains: Mixed-Descent Peoples and the Making of the American West
Hyde, Anne F.
Hardcover
Homosexuality in Cold War America: Resistance and the Crisis of Masculinity
Corber, Robert J.
Paperback
How to Be Less Stupid about Race: On Racism, White Supremacy, and the Racial Divide
Fleming, Crystal M.
Hardcover
Scandinavians in the State House: How Nordic Immigrants Shaped Minnesota Politics
Bergman, Klas
Paperback
The Token: Common Sense Ideas for Increasing Diversity in Your Organization
Farmer, Crystal Byrd
Paperback
Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America's Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing
Degruy, Joy a.
Paperback
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
Rothstein, Richard
Paperback
The Yahoo Boys: Love, Deception, and the Real Lives of Nigeria's Romance Scammers
Barragán, Carlos
Hardcover
1,000 Days in America: An Illustrated History of the Moments That Defined a Nation
National Geographic
Hardcover
The Zorg: A Tale of Greed and Murder That Inspired the Abolition of Slavery
Kara, Siddharth
Hardcover
Fear and Fury: The Reagan Eighties, the Bernie Goetz Shootings, and the Rebirth of White Rage
Thompson, Heather Ann
Hardcover
P Fkn R: How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance
Rivera-Rideau, Petra R.
Díaz, Vanessa
Paperback
The Chosen and the Damned: Native Americans and the Making of Race in the United States
Silverman, David J.
Hardcover
Five Bullets: The Story of Bernie Goetz, New York's Explosive '80s, and the Subway Vigilante Trial That Divided the Nation
Williams, Elliot
Hardcover
My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies
Menakem, Resmaa
Paperback
Miracle Children: Race, Education, and a True Story of False Promises
Benner, Katie
Green, Erica L.
Hardcover
American Reich: A Murder in Orange County, Neo-Nazis, and a New Age of Hate
Lichtblau, Eric
Hardcover
The Humanity Archive: Recovering the Soul of Black History from a Whitewashed American Myth
Fowler, Jermaine
Paperback
The Iceman Inheritance: Prehistoric Sources of Western Man's Racism, Sexism and Aggression
Bradley, Michael
Paperback
Redeem a Nation: The Century-Long Battle to Restore the Soul of America
Solomon-Simmons, Damario
Hardcover
Chocolate City: A History of Race and Democracy in the Nation's Capital
Musgrove, George Derek
Asch, Chris Myers
Paperback
Mother Emanuel: Two Centuries of Race, Resistance, and Forgiveness in One Charleston Church
Sack, Kevin
Hardcover
Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, Revised Edition: America's Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing
Degruy, Joy a.
Hardcover
The American Way of Killing: The Invention of an Epidemic (Large Print Edition)
Gladwell, Malcolm
Paperback
Crime Fictions: How Racist Lies Built a System of Mass Wrongful Conviction
Gonzalez Van Cleve, Nicole
Hardcover
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures
Fadiman, Anne
Paperback
The Japanese Way of Parenting: And What It Taught Me about Raising (Mostly) Calm, Caring, Capable Kids
Katayama, Lisa
Paperback
Are White Men Smarter Than Everybody Else?: Playing Offense in the Fight for Racial Justice in America
Phillips, Steve
Hardcover
Biography of a Dangerous Idea: A New History of Race from Louis XIV to Thomas Jefferson
Curran, Andrew S.
Hardcover
Original Sins: The (Mis)Education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism
Ewing, Eve L.
Paperback
Getting to Reparations: How Building a Different America Requires a Reckoning with Our Past
Brown, Dorothy A.
Hardcover
They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South
Jones-Rogers, Stephanie E.
Paperback
How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America
Richardson, Heather Cox
Paperback
Midnight on the Potomac: The Last Year of the Civil War, the Lincoln Assassination, and the Rebirth of America
Ellsworth, Scott
Hardcover
Born in Flames: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City
Ansfield, Bench
Hardcover
Man-Made: How We Designed a World That Leaves Women Out, and How We Can Make It Right
Reuther, Karen Korellis
Hardcover
The Crown's Silence: The Hidden History of the British Monarchy and Slavery in the Americas
Newman, Brooke N.
Hardcover
Daring to Be Free: Rebellion and Resistance of the Enslaved in the Atlantic World
Hazareesingh, Sudhir
Hardcover
A High Price for Freedom: Raising Hidden Voices from the African American Past
Ford, Clyde W.
Hardcover
We've Been Here Before: How Rebellion and Activism Have Always Sustained America
Dodson, Angela P.
Days, Michael I.
Hardcover
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Kendi, Ibram X.
Paperback
Read These Banned Books: A Journal and 52-Week Reading Challenge from the American Library Association
American Library Association (ALA)
Paperback
Was That Racist?: How to Detect, Interrupt, and Unlearn Bias in Everyday Life
Carter, Evelyn R.
Hardcover
For Brown Girls with Sharp Edges and Tender Hearts: A Love Letter to Women of Color
Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez, Prisca
Paperback
When It's Darkness on the Delta: How America's Richest Soil Became Its Poorest Land
Eubanks, W. Ralph
Hardcover
Morningside: The 1979 Greensboro Massacre and the Struggle for an American City's Soul
Shetterly, Aran
Hardcover
Black Marxism, Revised and Updated Third Edition: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition
Robinson, Cedric J.
Paperback
White Women: Everything You Already Know about Your Own Racism and How to Do Better
Jackson, Regina
Rao, Saira
Paperback
Pink Crime: Fighting Against the Criminalization of Motherhood, Pregnancy, and Queer Identity
Beety, Valena
Hardcover
Antiracism and Universal Design for Learning: Building Expressways to Success
Fritzgerald, Andratesha
Paperback
The Priest Who Stayed in Gaza: A Witness to Hope in the Ruins
Romanelli, Fr Gabriel
de Dieuleveult, Guillaume
Paperback
The Talmud Unmasked: The Secret Rabbinical Teachings Concerning Christians
Pranaitis, I. B.
Paperback
Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party
Bloom, Joshua
Martin, Waldo E., Jr.
Paperback
As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom Through Radical Resistance
Simpson, Leanne Betasamosake
Paperback
Rolling Stone and the Rise of Hip Capitalism: How a Magazine Born in the 1960s Changed America
Ponce de Leon, Charles L.
Hardcover
Blackinese: Reflections on Race and Ethnicity from a Biracial Millennial
Moore, Patricia Bradby
Hardcover
Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America's Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing
Degruy, Joy Angela
Paperback
John Doe Chinaman: A Forgotten History of Chinese Life Under American Racial Law
Lew-Williams, Beth
Hardcover
Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement from the 1950s Through the 1980s
Fayer, Steve
Hampton, Henry
Paperback
Stamped from the Beginning [Graphic Edition]: A Graphic History of Racist Ideas in America
Kendi, Ibram X.
Christian Gill, Joel
Paperback
Be a Revolution: How Everyday People Are Fighting Oppression and Changing the World--And How You Can, Too
Oluo, Ijeoma
Paperback
The White Pedestal: How White Nationalists Use Ancient Greece and Rome to Justify Hate
Dozier, Curtis
Hardcover
Ruin Their Crops on the Ground: The Politics of Food in the United States, from the Trail of Tears to School Lunch
Freeman, Andrea
Paperback
Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?: And Other Conversations about Race
Tatum, Beverly Daniel
Paperback
Languages of Home: Essays on Writing, Hoop, and American Lives 1975-2025
Wideman, John Edgar
Hardcover
Black, White, Colored: The Hidden Story of an Insurrection, a Family, a Southern Town, and Identity in America
Noble, Leeanet
Noble, Lauretta Malloy
Hardcover
Immigration Detention Inc.: The Big Business of Locking Up Migrants in America
Hiemstra, Nancy
Conlon, Deirdre
Paperback
A History of the World in Six Plagues: How Contagion, Class, and Captivity Shaped Us, from Cholera to Covid-19
Bonhomme, Edna
Paperback
Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (and Everything Else)
Táíwò, Olúfẹ́mi O.
Paperback
Not "A Nation of Immigrants": Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, and a History of Erasure and Exclusion
Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne
Paperback