Since natural history emerged in the middle of the 18th century, it has been at the heart of the life sciences. It gave rise to the major organizing theory of life - evolution - and continues to be a vital science with impressive practical value. Central to ecology, agriculture, medicine and environmental science, natural history attracts enormous popular interest. In this work, Paul Farber traces the development of the naturalist tradition since the 18th century and considers its relationship to other research areas in the life sciences. Written for the general reader and student alike, the volume explores the adventures of early naturalists, the ideas that lay behind classification systems, the development of museums and zoos, and the range of motives that led collectors to collect. Farber also explores the importance of sociocultural contexts, institutional settings, and government funding in the story of this durable discipline.
By:
Paul Lawrence Farber
Imprint: Johns Hopkins University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 229mm,
Width: 152mm,
Spine: 10mm
Weight: 227g
ISBN: 9780801863905
ISBN 10: 0801863902
Series: Johns Hopkins Introductory Studies in the History of Science
Pages: 152
Publication Date: 04 September 2000
Recommended Age: From 17
Audience:
General/trade
,
Professional and scholarly
,
ELT Advanced
,
Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter 1. Collecting, Classifying, and Interpreting Nature: Linnaeus and Buffon, 1735–1788 Chapter 2. New Specimens: Transforming Natural History into a Scientific Discipline, 1760–1840 Chapter 3. Comparing Structure: The Key to the Order of Nature, 1789–1848 Chapter 4. New Tools and Standard Practices, 1840–1859 Chapter 5. Darwin's Synthesis: The Theory of Evolution,1830–1882 Chapter 6. Studying Function: An Alternative Vision for the Science of Life, 1809–1900 Chapter 7. Victorian Fascination: The Golden Age of Natural History, 1880–1900 Chapter 8. New Synthesis: The Modern Theory of Evolution, 1900–1950 Chapter 9. The Naturalist as Generalist: E. O. Wilson, 1950–1994 Epilogue Suggested Further Reading Index
Paul Lawrence Farber is the Oregon State University Distinguished Professor of History of Science and chair of the Department of History at Oregon State University.
Reviews for Finding Order in Nature: The Naturalist Tradition from Linnaeus to E. O. Wilson
<p> Broadly charts the intellectual, epistemological, aesthetic, and cultural work of the naturalist tradition -- from the great eighteenth-century systematic nomenclators Linnaeus and Buffon, through the nineteenth-century evolutionary theorists Darwin and Wallace, to contemporary American entomologist Edward O. Wilson. It reflects a generalist sensibility and is valuable precisely because its scope is broad and its story compelling. -- Michael P. Branch, Isle
