NATURES MEMORY

A behind the scenes tour through the world s greatest natural history museums revealing how their hidden secrets can help us in the fight against climate change Zoologist Jack Ashby spends his life working in Britain s natural history museums and in Nature s Memory he guides us through a series of extraordinary collections from marvellous mounted whale skeletons and impossibly tiny insect cabinets to buried treasures in vast museum storehouses But look more closely at these displays all is not as it seems While most exhibits succeed in communicating feelings of wonder and awe a vital function when less people than ever before have access to the outdoors Ashby argues that the version of nature natural history museums present does not always reflect reality with specimens revealing more about the biases of curators than they do about the species they represent Likewise the ways in which museums have traditionally told the story of their own histories has disproportionately elevated the contributions of certain kinds of people whilst diminishing the work of others often ignoring their complex colonial heritage altogether But Ashby contends that these issues are precisely why it s such an exciting time to be a natural historian for while society shapes