Inventing the Earth Ideas on Landscape Development Since 1740

About this book

This book chronicles how successive generations of natural philosophers, geologists and geomorphologists have come to invent the view of the Earth over the past 250 years, using as its central viewpoint changing ideas about the significance of the action of rain and rivers on the Earth's surface. It shows how our contemporary "truths" have come to be accepted and exposes the frailty of even the most impeccably scientific visions of the Earth.

Contents

List of Illustrations.Preface.Acknowledgements.Introduction.1 Inventing Scientific Explanations.2 Inventing the Age (and Origin) of the Earth3 Inventing 'Modern Earth Science': Charles Lyell and 'The Principles of Geology'.4 Inventing the Ice Age: the Role of Louis Agassiz.5 Inventing a Balanced View of 'Forces Now in Operation': Charles Darwin's Travels in Space and Time.6 Inventing a Fluvial Landscape: Powell, Gilbert and the Western Explorations.7 The Invention of the Geographical Cycle and the Synthetic Genius of W. M. Davis.8 Reinventing a Newtonian Universe: the Reductionist Revolution, 1945-1977.9 Reinventing the Earth, 1977-: Homo sapiens, History and Micro-organisms.Epilogue.Appendix I: Cast of Principal Characters.Appendix II: Selective Glossary of Technical Terms.References.Index.

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Biography

Dr Barbara Kennedy is Emeritus Fellow of St Hugh's College, University of Oxford and former Lecturer (CUF) in the School of Geography.