This lavishly illustrated volume is the first systematic general work to do justice to the fruits of recent scholarship in the history of natural history. Twenty-four specially-commissioned essays cover the period from the sixteenth century, when the first institutions of natural history were created, to its late nineteenth-century transformation by practitioners of the new biological sciences. An introduction discusses novel approaches that have made this a major focus for research in cultural history. The essays, which include suggestions for further reading, offer a coherent and accessible overview of a fascinating subject.
Acknowledgments
Notes on contributors
Introduction
1. The natures of cultural history / Nicholas Jardine and Emma Spary
Part I. Curiosity, Erudition and Utility
2. Emblematic natural history / William B. Ashworth Jr
3. The culture of gardens / Andrew Cunningham
4. Courting nature / Paula Findlen
5. The culture of curiosity / Katie Whitaker
6. Physicians and natural history / Harold J. Cook
7. Natural history as print culture / Adrian Johns
Part II. Virtuosity, Improvement and Sensibility
8. Natural history in the academies / Daniel Roche
9. Carl Linnaeus and his time and place / Lisbet Koerner
10. Gender in natural history / Londa Schiebinger
11. Political natural and bodily economics / Emma Spary
12. The science of man / Paul B. Wood
13. The natural history of the earth / Martin Guntau
14. Naturphilosophie and the kingdoms of nature Nicholas Jardine
Part III. Discipline, Discovery and Display
15. New spaces in natural history / Dorinda Outram
16. Minerals strata and fossils / Martin Rudwick
17. Humboldtian science / Michael Dettelbach
18. Biogeography and empire / Janet Browne
19. Travelling the other way / Gillian Beer
20. Ethological encounters / Michael T. Bravo
21. Equipment for the field / Anne Larsen
22. Artisan botany / Anne Secord
23. Tastes and crazes / David Allen
24. Nature for the people / Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent and Jean-Marc Drouin
25. Natural history and the 'new' biology / Lynn K. Nyhart
Epilogue
26. The crisis of nature / James A. Secord
"For years I have wished for some single text or volume to which I could send students to introduce them to the full diversity and richness of 'natural history'. This collection should serve as the starting point for a deeper enquiry into this topic for many years [...] I have rarely been more delighted with a set of papers. The editors are to be commended for this considerable addition to the literature."
– The British Journal for the History of Science
"[...] an excellent introduction to the history of natural history and a revealing guide to current scholarly preoccupations."
– The Times Literary Supplement
"[...] present work [...] is excellent of its kind, well written and handsomely illustrated."
– Revue d'Histoire des Sciences