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Recreating First Contact
"Recreating First Contact explores the proliferation of adventure travel that emerged during the early twentieth century plus the themes legitimized by their associations with popular views of anthropology. During that time, new transport and recording technologies--particularly airplanes, automobiles, and small portable, still and motion-picture cameras--were used by many expeditions to document the last untouched places of the globe and bring them home to eager audiences. These expeditions were frequently presented as first contact encounters, and they enchanted popular imagination. The various narratives in the articles, books, films, exhibitions, and lecture tours that the expeditions generated fed into pre-existing stereotypes about racial and technological difference, and helped to create them anew in popular culture. Through review of several expeditions and their popular...