Taxidermy-the preservation, stuffing, and mounting of animal skins for lifelike display-has been traced back over four centuries to imperial Europe. In the intervening centuries it has remained inextricably linked to the politics of colonial conquest, materializing Western fantasies of mastery over the natural world and control of unruly, "wild" bodies. In Taxidermic Signs, Pauline Wakeham decodes the practice of taxidermy as it was performed in North...