Abstract

One of the most lasting influences of Robert Darnton’s famous essay ‘The Great Cat Massacre’ is perhaps its title. Numerous journal articles, book chapters, and monographs have knowingly alluded to it in their own titles. Michael Vann’s ‘The Great Hanoi Rat Massacre’, Nancy Jacobs’ ‘The Great Bophuthatswana Donkey Massacre’, Ying-Kit Chan’s ‘The Great Dog Massacre in Late Qing China’, Ian Jared Miller’s book chapter, ‘The Great Zoo Massacre’, and Hilda Kean’s The Great Cat and Dog Massacre are a few prominent examples. Yet, in spite of this reoccurring reference, the term ‘massacre’ itself has not been historicised in these studies. In this essay, I use this conceit to interrogate the linkages and divergences between the mass killing of humans and of animals. I argue for animal historians to think through the political implications of naming episodes of the mass killing of animals ‘massacres’.