Sign-In
Cart
Palace of Deception: Museum Men and the Rise of Scientific Racism
Hardcover
20th Century United States HistoryExplorationGeneral World History
Publisher Price: $29.99
ISBN13: 9781324065678
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: Nov 4 2025
Pages: 288
Weight: 1.10
Height: 1.10 Width: 6.30 Depth: 9.10
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, including Theodore Roosevelt and J. P. Morgan. 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 who created so many of the museum's most memorable exhibits; and Osborn, the museum's president, who was once considered an authority on everything from paleontology and evolution to race and eugenics. From Andrews's ambitions searching for fossils in the Gobi Desert to the construction of Akeley's artistic masterpiece, the Hall of African Mammals, 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--one full of strict natural laws and categories--endorsed by the museum's powerful leader.
Based on extensive diaries, letters, journals, and the author's own experiences leading modern-day expeditions to several of the same places, Palace of Deception re-creates 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
20th Century United States History
Designed for Hi-Fi Living: The Vinyl LP in Midcentury America
Borgerson, Janet
Schroeder, Jonathan
Paperback
By the Light of Burning Dreams: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the Second American Revolution
Talbot, Margaret
Talbot, David
Hardcover
The Sullivanians: Sex, Psychotherapy, and the Wild Life of an American Commune
Stille, Alexander
Hardcover
A Manufactured Wilderness: Summer Camps and the Shaping of American Youth, 1890-1960
Van Slyck, Abigail A.
Hardcover
Mary's Mosaic: The CIA Conspiracy to Murder John F. Kennedy, Mary Pinchot Meyer, and Their Vision for World Peace
Janney, Peter
Hardcover
What Have They Built You to Do?: The Manchurian Candidate and Cold War America
Jacobson, Matthew Frye
Gonzalez, Gaspar
Paperback
Dangerous Games: Faces, Incidents, and Casualties of the Cold War
Wise, James E.
Baron, Scott
Hardcover
1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History--And How It Shatteredâ a Nation
Sorkin, Andrew Ross
Hardcover
Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young: A Fugitive Family in the Revolutionary Underground
Dohrn, Zayd Ayers
Hardcover
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America
Rothstein, Richard
Paperback
The Secret War Against Hate: American Resistance to Antisemitism and White Supremacy
Ross, Steven J.
Hardcover
Ghosts of Sicily: The True Story of the Naval Intelligence Agents Who Courted the Mob to Fight Nazis in America and the Battlefields of Italy
Harmon, Mark
Carroll, Leon
Hardcover
Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation
Kobes Du Mez, Kristin
Paperback
The Hardest, Longest Race: Henry Ford and the Cross-Country Contest That Changed America
Moskowitz, Eric
Hardcover
The Housewives Underground: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the JFK Assassination Our Most Enduring Mystery
Tiffany, Kaitlyn
Hardcover
American Scoundrel: Roy Cohn's Dark Journey from Joe McCarthy to Donald Trump
Bird, Kai
Goldmark, Susan
Hardcover
Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II
Graham, Elyse
Paperback
El Paso: Five Families and One Hundred Years of Blood, Migration, Race, and Memory
Ulloa, Jazmine
Hardcover
The Last Full Measure: An American Family and How the United States Brought Home the Dead of World War II
Clarke, Kim
Hardcover
Liberation Summer: The Moment That Changed the Women's Movement and the Future of American Politics
McElya, Micki
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
The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics
Brown, Daniel James
Paperback
Transgender History, Third Edition: A Resource for Today's Struggle--And Tomorrow's
Stryker, Susan
Paperback
Shadow Before the Flame: The Hindenburg Disaster and the Prelude to War
Katz, Catherine Grace
Hardcover
Gerontocracy in America: How the Old Are Hoarding Power and Wealth--And What to Do about It
Moyn, Samuel
Hardcover
A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them
Egan, Timothy
Paperback
The Summer of Death: The Great Heat Wave of 1936 and the Making of Modern-Day America
Williams, Geoff
Hardcover
The Flag Was Still There: A History of the American Experiment in Five Anniversaries
McKean, David
Bennett, M. Todd
Hardcover
Yuppies: The Bankers, Lawyers, Joggers, and Gourmands Who Conquered New York
Gottlieb, Dylan
Hardcover
The Steal: Four Right-Wing Hard-Liners, One Republican Presidency, and the Raid on America's Courts
Wagner, Alex
Hardcover
The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl
Egan, Timothy
Paperback
1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History--And How It Shatteredâ a Nation (Large Print Edition)
Sorkin, Andrew Ross
Paperback
The CIA Book Club: The Secret Mission to Win the Cold War with Forbidden Literature
English, Charlie
Hardcover
The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the Cia, and the Rise of America's Secret Government
Talbot, David
Paperback
An Inconvenient Woman: The Extraordinary Life of Lillian Smith, the Southerner Who Defied Jim Crow America
Merritt, Keri Leigh
Hardcover
Playmakers: The Jewish Entrepreneurs Who Created the Toy Industry in America
Kimmel, Michael
Hardcover
The Gods of New York: Egotists, Idealists, Opportunists, and the Birth of the Modern City: 1986-1990
Mahler, Jonathan
Hardcover
The Most Awful Responsibility: Truman and the Secret Struggle for Control of the Atomic Age
Wellerstein, Alex
Hardcover
Born in Flames: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City
Ansfield, Bench
Hardcover
How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America
Richardson, Heather Cox
Paperback
This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible
Cobb, Charles E., Jr.
Paperback
Martyrs to the Unspeakable: The Assassinations of Jfk, Malcolm, Martin, and Rfk
Douglass, James W.
Hardcover
The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther
Haas, Jeffrey
Paperback
The Devil Reached Toward the Sky: An Oral History of the Making and Unleashing of the Atomic Bomb
Graff, Garrett M.
Hardcover
The Martians: The True Story of an Alien Craze That Captured Turn-Of-The-Century America
Baron, David
Hardcover
Kingmaker: Pamela Harriman's Astonishing Life of Power, Seduction, and Intrigue
Purnell, Sonia
Paperback
The Feather Detective: Mystery, Mayhem, and the Magnificent Life of Roxie Laybourne
Sweeney, Chris
Hardcover
Dear Senator: A Memoir by the Daughter of Strom Thurmond
Stadiem, William
Washington-Williams, Essie Mae
Paperback
When America Roared: How the 1980s Saved, Then Broke, the Country--And Led Us to Today
Kaufman, Jonathan
Hardcover
Evidence of the Extraordinary: Discoveries from the Series the Proof Is Out There
Sancho, Miguel
Hardcover
The Forgotten 500: The Untold Story of the Men Who Risked All for the Greatest Rescue Mission of World War II
Freeman, Gregory A.
Paperback
The Radical Fund: How a Band of Visionaries and a Million Dollars Upended America
Witt, John Fabian
Hardcover
You Can't Catch Us: Lady Bird Johnson's Trailblazing 1964 Campaign Train and the Women Who Rode with Her
McKenna Schmidt, Shannon
Hardcover
The Azusa Street Mission and Revival: The Birth of the Global Pentecostal Movement
Robeck, Cecil M.
Paperback
How We Get Free (Updated 2nd Edition): Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective
Taylor, Keeanga-Yamahtta
Paperback
A Treacherous Secret Agent: How Literature Spoke Truth to Power During the Red Scare
Garber, Marjorie
Hardcover
Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror, and Deliverance in the City of Love
Talbot, David
Paperback
A Librarian's War: The Man Who Fought World War II with Books and Brought the Joy of Reading to Millions
Manning, Molly Guptill
Hardcover
Out Where the West Begins: Profiles, Visions, and Strategies of Early Western Business Leaders
Anschutz, Philip F.
Hardcover
Ghosts of Honolulu: A Japanese Spy, a Japanese American Spy Hunter, and the Untold Story of Pearl Harbor
Harmon, Mark
Paperback
True Blue: The Dramatic History of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Told by the Men Who Lived It
Delsohn, Steve
Paperback
Guerra Contra Todos Los Puertorriqueños: Revolución Y Terror En La Colonia Americana
Denis, Nelson A.
Paperback
A Place Called Yellowstone: The Epic History of the World's First National Park
Wilson, Randall K.
Paperback
An American Girl: How a Billion-Dollar Doll and Its Unlikely Founder Changed Girlhood Forever
Fitzsimons, Amanda
Hardcover
Solo and Together: Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, an Enigmatic Life and Marriage
Hansen, James R.
Hardcover
The Church Committee Report: Revelations from the Bombshell 1970s Investigation Into the National Security State
Guariglia, Matthew
Hochman, Brian
Paperback
Pre-Code Essentials: Must-See Cinema from Hollywood's Untamed Era, 1930-1934
Luperi, Kim
Reid, Danny
Paperback
Banished Citizens: A History of the Mexican American Women Who Endured Repatriation
Ramírez, Marla A.
Hardcover
Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America's Fight Over World War II, 1939-1941
Olson, Lynne
Paperback
Rolling Stone and the Rise of Hip Capitalism: How a Magazine Born in the 1960s Changed America
Ponce de Leon, Charles L.
Hardcover
The Silver Snarling Trumpet: The Birth of the Grateful Dead--The Lost Manuscript of Robert Hunter
Hunter, Robert
Paperback
Lincoln's Ghost: Houdini's War on Spiritualism and the Dark Conspiracy Against the American Presidency
Ricca, Brad
Hardcover
The Beast in the Clouds: The Roosevelt Brothers' Deadly Quest to Find the Mythical Giant Panda
Holt, Nathalia
Hardcover
Days of Rage: America's Radical Underground, the Fbi, and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence
Burrough, Bryan
Paperback
The Feather Detective: Mystery, Mayhem, and the Magnificent Life of Roxie Laybourne
Sweeney, Chris
Paperback
Every Time a Bell Rings: The Legacy of It's a Wonderful Life, America's Most Beloved Holiday Film
Theisen, Lauren
St James, Emily
Hardcover
Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement from the 1950s Through the 1980s
Fayer, Steve
Hampton, Henry
Paperback
Bubble in the Sun: The Florida Boom of the 1920s and How It Brought on the Great Depression
Knowlton, Christopher
Paperback
Myth America: Historians Take on the Biggest Legends and Lies about Our Past
Kruse, Kevin M.
Zelizer, Julian E.
Hardcover
They Kill People: Bonnie and Clyde, a Hollywood Revolution, and America's Obsession with Guns and Outlaws
Ellis, Kirk
Hardcover
The Last Flight: The Untold Story of the Search for JFK Jr. and the Race Against the Atlantic
Webster, W. Russell
Webster, Theresa M.
Hardcover
The Distance Between Our Names: The Untold History of America's War on Japanese Immigrants
Richter, Paul
Hardcover