Reading the World: British Practices of Natural History, 1760-1820 (Sci & Culture in the Nineteenth Century)

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries-a period that marked the emergence of a global modernity-educated landowners, or “gentlemen,” dominated the development of British natural history, utilizing networks of trade and empire to inventory nature and understand events across the world.Specimens, ranging from a Welsh bittern to the plants of Botany Bay, were collected, recorded, and classified, while books were produced in London and copies distributed and used across Britain, Continental Europe, the Pacific, Asia, and the Americas.Natural history connected a diverse range of individuals, from European landowners to Polynesian priests, incorporating, distributing, synthesizing, and appropriating information collected on a global scale._x000D__x000D_In Reading the World, Edwin D.Rose positions books, natural history specimens, and people in a close cycle of literary production and consumption.His book reveals new aspects of scientific practice and the specific roles of individuals emp