Philip F. Rehbock, The Philosophical Naturalists: Themes in Early Nineteenth-Century British Biology. (Wisconsin Publications in the History of Science and Medicine, 3). Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983. Pp xv + 281. ISBN 0-299-09430-8. $30.

1985 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 251-251
Author(s):  
Janet Browne
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-240
Author(s):  
Sujit Sivasundaram

Starting from Madras, travelling across the Bay of Bengal, to the coast of Sumatra and then to Singapore, this paper provides a cultural history of nineteenth-century knowledge-making as an enterprise in making and breaking three concepts: globe, empire and self. It does so by working outwards from early-nineteenth century pendulum-length experiments to determine the curvature of the Earth. It argues that moving across concepts and scales was vital to a regime of big data. Data-crunching involved different sciences and split across territories and sea and land. As the project of making the globe proceeded, for instance from Madras Observatory, imperial settlements could be located precisely as coordinates, for instance British Singapore, and indigenous intellectuals, like Abdullah bin Abdul Kadir (1797–1854), had to find their place in a world of imperial free trade. Global model-making brought about a detachment from individuals and locations as people and places were fixed on a globe and it led to the erasure of the indigenous informant, a key figure in recent histories of science. In linking the making of the globe to the fate of intermediary, the argument urges the need to place indigenous agency in the sciences within wider accounts of labour, capital and imperial expansion.


Author(s):  
Paulo Henrique Trentin

ResumoEste texto faz uma reflexão acerca da importância sugerida pelos autores, tradutores e outros personagens responsáveis pela divulgação dos conhecimentos científicos do final do século XVIII ao início do século XIX no Brasil. Selecionamos, para nosso estudo, as seguintes obras:   Elementos de Astronomia, 1813, Tratado Elementar de Machanica, 1812, Tratado de Optica, 1813, Tratado Elementar de Physica tomo II, 181 e o Jornal O Patriota, 1813-1814. O estudo apresenta as expectativas manifestadas pelos autores, tradutores e editores dos textos selecionados, no que se refere a importância social, política ou econômica, que davam aos seus trabalhos. Especificamente, centramos na identificação das manifestações dos autores dos textos entendendo que, além do ambiente social, político e econômico ao qual pertenciam, seus anseios, desejos e expectativas também fizeram parte das obras que constituíram. Dialogamos com autores como: Luís Miguel Carolino; Maria Odila Leite da Silva Dias e Lorelai Kury, constituindo um pano de fundo nessa empreitada. O estudo que realizamos permitiu considerar que não há uma resposta definitiva e que não podemos apontar que ambições ou expectativas os editores, autores ou tradutores exatamente tiveram para divulgar conhecimentos científicos. Porém, no que se refere a “utilidade” que atribuíam ao conhecimento divulgado, pudemos aprofundar um pouco mais e trazer algumas considerações que podem contribuir com análises e reflexões sobre a temática.   Palavras-chave: Conhecimento Científico; Utilidade; Divulgação de Conhecimento; História da Ciência.AbstractThis text reflects on the importance suggested by authors, translators and other persons responsible for the dissemination of scientific knowledge, from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century in Brazil. We selected the following texts to support our study: Elementos de Astronomia, 1813, Tratado Elementar de Machanica, 1812, Tratado de Optica, 1813, Tratado Elementar de Physica tomo II, 181 e o Jornal O Patriota, 1813-1814. The analysis presents some expectations expressed by the authors, translators and editors of these selected texts regarding the social, political or economic importance they gave to their work. Specifically, we focused on the identification of the manifestations of the authors of the texts, understanding that, in addition to the social, political and economic environment to which they belonged, their yearnings, desires and expectations were also part of the works they constituted. We dialogue with authors like: Luis Miguel Carolino; Maria Odila Leite da Silva Dias and Lorelai Kury, constituting a background in this endeavor. The study we conducted allowed us to consider that there is no definitive answer and that we cannot point out what ambitions or expectations the editors, authors or translators had exactly to disseminate scientific knowledge. However, with regard to the "usefulness" they attributed to the knowledge disseminated, we were able to deepen a little more and bring some considerations that can contribute with analyzes and reflections on the subject.Keywords: Scientific knowledge; Usefulness; Knowledge Disclosure; History of Science


2003 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 299-316 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans-JüRgen Lechtreck

Two early nineteenth century texts treating the production and use of wax models of fruit reveal the history of these objects in the context of courtly decoration. Both sources emphasise the models' decorative qualities and their suitability for display, properties which were not simply by-products of the realism that the use of wax allowed. Thus, such models were not regarded merely as visual aids for educational purposes. The artists who created them sought to entice collectors of art and natural history objects, as well as teachers and scientists. Wax models of fruits are known to have been collected and displayed as early as the seventeenth century, although only one such collection is extant. Before the early nineteenth century models of fruits made from wax or other materials (glass, marble, faience) were considered worthy of display because contemporaries attached great importance to mastery of the cultivation and grafting of fruit trees. This skill could only be demonstrated by actually showing the fruits themselves. Therefore, wax models made before the early nineteenth century may also be regarded as attempts to preserve natural products beyond the point of decay.


Author(s):  
Michael D. Gordin

Dmitrii Mendeleev (1834–1907) is a name we recognize, but perhaps only as the creator of the periodic table of elements. Generally, little else has been known about him. This book is an authoritative biography of Mendeleev that draws a multifaceted portrait of his life for the first time. As the book reveals, Mendeleev was not only a luminary in the history of science, he was also an astonishingly wide-ranging political and cultural figure. From his attack on Spiritualism to his failed voyage to the Arctic and his near-mythical hot-air balloon trip, this is the story of an extraordinary maverick. The ideals that shaped his work outside science also led Mendeleev to order the elements and, eventually, to engineer one of the most fascinating scientific developments of the nineteenth century. This book is a classic work that tells the story of one of the world's most important minds.


Author(s):  
Johannes Zachhuber

This chapter reviews the book The Making of English Theology: God and the Academy at Oxford (2014). by Dan Inman. The book offers an account of a fascinating and little known episode in the history of the University of Oxford. It examines the history of Oxford’s Faculty of Theology from the early nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth. In particular, it revisits the various attempts to tinker with theology at Oxford during this period and considers the fierce resistance of conservatives. Inman argues that Oxford’s idiosyncratic development deserves to be taken more seriously than it often has been, at least by historians of theology.


Author(s):  
Sarah Collins

This chapter examines the continuities between the categories of the “national” and the “universal” in the nineteenth century. It construes these categories as interrelated efforts to create a “world” on various scales. The chapter explores the perceived role of music as a world-making medium within these discourses. It argues that the increased exposure to cultural difference and the interpretation of that cultural difference as distant in time and space shaped a conception of “humanity” in terms of a universal history of world cultures. The chapter reexamines those early nineteenth-century thinkers whose work became inextricably linked with the rise of exclusivist notions of nationalism in the late nineteenth century, such as Johann Gottfried Herder and John Stuart Mill. It draws from their respective treatment of music to recover their early commitment to universalizable principles and their view that the “world” is something that must be actively created rather than empirically observed.


Author(s):  
ULRICH MARZOLPH ◽  
MATHILDE RENAULD

Abstract The collections of the Royal Asiatic Society hold an illustrated pilgrimage scroll apparently dating from the first half of the nineteenth century. The scroll's hand painted images relate to the journey that a pious Shiʿi Muslim would have undertaken after the performance of the pilgrimage to Mecca. Its visual narrative continues, first to Medina and then to the Shiʿi sanctuaries in present-day Iraq, concluding in the Iranian city of Mashhad at the sanctuary of the eighth imam of the Twelver-Shiʿi creed, imam Riḍā (d. 818). The scroll was likely prepared in the early nineteenth century and acquired by the Royal Asiatic Society from its unknown previous owner sometime after 1857. In terms of chronology the pilgrimage scroll fits neatly into the period between the Niebuhr scroll, bought in Karbala in 1765, and a lithographed item most likely dating from the latter half of the nineteenth century, both of which depict a corresponding journey. The present essay's initial survey of the scroll's visual dimension, by Ulrich Marzolph, adds hitherto unknown details to the history of similar objects. The concluding report, by Mathilde Renauld, sheds light on the scroll's material condition and the difficulties encountered during the object's conservation and their solution.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document